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A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


"SALLIE    STOOD    AND    GAZED    AT    THE    KEC/KI.ESS    ((H  I'LE." 

Page  260. 


A  GIRL 
WHO  WROTE 


By 

ALAN     DALE 


1902 

QUAIL      &      WARNER 

NEW     YORK 


Copyright  in  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
BY  QUAIL  &  WARNER, 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE. 

DURING  a  long  and  more  or  less  vivacious  communion 
with  metropolitan  journalism  certain  impressions  have 
filtered  through  my  mind,  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
set  forth  in  the  pages  that  follow.  Those  who  imagine 
that  the  particular  caps  in  this  story  are  designed  to  fit 
individual  heads  in  the  real  life  of  Newspaper  Row 
will  most  assuredly  be  mistaken.  Although  the  task  of 
"steering  away"  from  "personalities"  was  not  an  easy 
one,  it  has  nevertheless  been  accomplished — to  my  own 
satisfaction.  Perhaps  "personalities"  are  merely  a  mat- 
ter of  taste,  but  they  are  not  my  taste.  These  pictures 
are  mostly  what  might  be  called  "composite."  They 
are  general  impressions  individualized.  In  sheer  jus- 
tice— to  my  own  notions — I  claim  exemption  from  the 
suspicion  of  ridiculing  my  own  friends.  It  is  in  News- 
paper Row  that  they  all  lurk — or  it  is  there,  at  any  rate, 
that  I  believe  them  to  lurk. 

Some  of  my  happiest,  as  well  as  my  unhappiest,  days 
have  been  spent  in  Owldom,  and  now — in  the  mellow- 
ing maturity  of  my  views — I  claim  for  my  pictures  the 
sanctuary  of  what  we  call  "the  happy  medium." 

NEW  YORK,  1902. 


2129082 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


CHAPTER  I. 

nHE    solemn,    portentous   owls   of    Newspaper 
Row    blinked    into    New    York's    midnight. 
Their  time  had  come,  and  their  moping  hour 
was    over.     The    neighborhood,    and    all    it 
owned,   was   apparently  theirs.     Old   Ben   Franklin, 
lugubriously  gray,   stood  on  his  pedestal  as  a  sen- 
tinel.    Greeley  himself,  in  cold  stone  clothes,  seemed 
to  jealously  guard  the  chill  Caxtonian  period  when  the 
owls  were  in  travail  and  the  careless  city  had  left  them 
to  their  labor  and  their  pain. 

Newspaper  Row  claimed  everything  in  sight.  City 
Hall  Park,  with  its  architecture  whitened  in  the  electric 
light,  seemed  merely  an  annex.  Tired  men  used  this 
park  as  a  "short  cut"  to  the  owls'  nests,  into  which 
they  cast  as  offerings  all  the  varied  human  odds  and 
ends  collected  during  the  weary,  throbbing  day.  Blue- 
suited  messengers  pattered  over  the  pavements  with 
their  tributes.  Serious  boys,  to  whom  the  owls  prom- 
ised a  "career,"  jubilantly  entered  the  service,  and  gave 
of  their  best  to  the  blinking  journalistic  birds.  It  was 
all  grist  that  came  to  the  owls.  Sorrow  was  as  nour- 
ishing as  joy.  Despair  was  as  keen  a  tonic  as  hope. 
Death  fed  the  owl-corpuscles  as  redly  as  life.  Sorrow 
and  joy,  despair  and  hope,  death  and  life,  made  up  the 
delectable  nocturnal  menu.  With  them  the  owls  built 
up  fat,  black  columns  that  appealed  to  an  entire  nation ; 
and  they  were  prosperous  and  potent,  so  that  Newspa- 


2  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

per  Row  was  their  veritable  kingdom,  their  right  to 
which  none  dared  dispute. 

There  were  few  contrasting  colors  in  external  Owl- 
dom.  An  isolated  drug-store  stood,  multi-colored,  in 
the  gloom,  and  offered  cool  draughts  to  the  fevered 
denizens  of  Newspaper  Row.  An  occasional  eating- 
house  set  tables  for  those  whose  material  weariness 
claimed  its  recognition.  These  strange  reminders  of 
the  human  side  of  things  looked  rather  illicit  and 
ashamed  of  themselves.  God-fearing  men  knew  them 
not,  nor  cared  to  know  them.  They  sold  owls'  food. 
The  frou-frou  of  a  girl's  dress  was  usually  unfamiliar 
to  them.  A  few  of  those  who  served  the  owls  wore 
girls'  dresses,  a'nd  paid  infrequent  visits.  But  these 
few  did  not  count.  They  wore  feminine  garbs,  but 
they  were  scarcely  feminine.  Moreover,  they  eschewed 
the  luxury  of  frou-frou. 

In  an  extremely  large  room  in  one  of  the  best-regu- 
lated nests  in  Newspaper  Row  fifty  men  sat  catering 
to  the  owls.  The  room  was  grim  and  plain.  Decora- 
tion would  have  died  in  it,  and  "modern  improvement" 
would  have  cried  out  in  torture  to  the  sun  or  to  the 
moon — or  to  anything  that  could  be  sympathetically 
apostrophized.  Long  rows  of  desks  traversed  the 
room,  and  men  sat  at  them  in  their  shirt-sleeves  and 
labored.  Some  of  these  workers  were  grievously 
young.  They  wore  green  shades  over  their  eyes  in 
order  to  concentrate  their  energies,  for  they  were  try- 
ing to  make  the  real  things  of  life  sound  like  fiction, 
and  the  imaginary  things  of  fiction  sound  like  life. 
They  were  endeavoring  to  cast  the  glamour  of  their 
youthful  imagination  upon  sordid  events  that  were 
rarely  new.  It  was  their  duty  to  show  that  the  latest 
thing  in  murders  was  quite  the  most  sensational ;  the 
most  recent  marriage  the  showiest;  the  last  divorce 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  3 

the  most  harrowing;  the  day's  gathering  in  of  births 
and  deaths  the  most  entertaining.  They  had  to  do 
this  every  day,  and  of  course  it  was  trying.  "Cres- 
cendo" was  the  motto  of  Newspaper  Row.  The  owls 
exacted  it,  and  the  owls  obtained  it. 

The  clicking  of  the  telegraph,  the  tinkling  of  the  tele- 
phone, the  shuffling  entrance  of  the  messengers,  the 
squeaky  sound  of  reluctant  pens,  the  whizzing  of  elec- 
tric fans,  the  whispers  of  an  occasional  conference,  the 
irreverent  bourdonnement  of  office  boys,  the  tam-tam 
of  the  type-writing  machine,  the  whirr.,  heard  through 
open  windows,  of  elevated  railway  trains  and  blatant 
cable-cars,  and  untraceable  whistles— all  failed  to 
worry  the  men  that  labored.  They  were  so  used  to  it 
all.  It  fell  upon  their  ears,  and  made  no  impression 
there.  They  paid  but  slight  attention  even  to  the  tones 
of  their  lord-in-chief,  the  night  city  editor — the  one 
man  in  that  room  who  gave  to  his  voice  a  fine  oppor- 
tunity. They  were  automata.  The  blinking  owls  out- 
side had  called  them  in,  and  there  they  were. 

The  night  city  editor  was  a  large  person,  who  put  on 
his  authority  when  he  took  off  his  coat.  He  wore 
glasses  and  looked  nervous.  Occasionally  an  almost 
human  expression  appeared  in  the  immobility  of  his 
face,  but  he  liked  to  pretend  that  he  was  merely  a  cog 
in  the  wheel.  And  the  pretense  was  not  difficult.  He 
looked  at  the  owl-workers  from  time  to  time  and  peri- 
odically took  sheets  of  paper  from  them,  glancing  .at 
what  they  had  written  thereon.  If  he  liked  it,  he  said 
nothing.  If  he  didn't  like  it,  he  said  a  good  deal.  He 
was  not  there  as  an  encouragement,  but  as  a  discour- 
agement. In  private  life  (which  he  possessed  merely 
in  a  nominal  way)  he  was  a  tired  man,  with  a  wife  and 
children. 

The  night  city  editor  looked  up  from  beneath  his 


4  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

green  shade  as  a  very  young  man  with  fair  hair  and 
a  chubby,  every-day  expression  came  into  the  room. 
He  was  a  new  reporter,  and  had  not  yet  acquired  the 
characteristics  of  Newspaper  Row. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,  sir,"  said  this  young  man,  as  he 
stopped  in  front  of  the  night  city  editor's  desk,  "but  I 
couldn't  get  an  obituary  of  Mr.  Hodge.  You  see,  he 
only  died  this  evening.  His  wife — I  mean  his  widow 
— was  in  such  a  fearful  state — so  dreadfully  cut  up — 
that  she  begged  me  to  go  away,  as  she  couldn't  tell  me 
anything  to-night.  In  a  few  days,  she  said,  she  would 
give  me  his  history." 

An  expression  of  blank  astonishment  was  graven 
upon  the  face  of  the  night  city  editor.  He  looked  at 
the  young  man,  and  for  a  moment  was  unable  to  speak. 
Then,  as  the  new  reporter  was  about  to  move  away, 
the  use  of  his  tongue  returned  to  him.  It  never  took 
very  long  or  very  distant  trips. 

"See  here,  Robinson,"  he  said,  "I  sent  you  to  Mr. 
Hodge's  house — to  his  late  house,  if  you  prefer  it — for 
an  obituary  notice.  You  come  back  with  this  ridic- 
ulous story  of  getting  it  in  a  few  days.  After  to- 
morrow morning  we  sha'n't  want  a  line  about  Hodge. 
Nobody  will  care  a  hang  about  him.  Go  right  back 
and  get  that  notice." 

Robinson,  still  believing  in  the  human  side  of  things, 
stood  still. 

"But,  Mr.  Green,"  he  said,  "Mrs.  Hodge  was  in  hys- 
terics when  I  left.  I  rang  up  the  house.  She  had 
gone  to  bed,  and  had  just  fallen  asleep  under  the  influ- 
ence of  opiates.  When  she  heard  what  I  wanted,  she 
began  to  laugh  and  cry,  and — make  a  terrible  com- 
motion. I  never  felt  so  sorry  for  anyone  in  my  life. 
She  couldn't  answer  a  question,  and  there  was  nobody 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  5 

else  there  able  to  do  so.  I'm  awfully  sorry,  Mr.  Green, 
but  it  wasn't  my  fault." 

"Not  your  fault  ?"  cried  the  night  city  editor,  testily. 
"You  call  yourself  a  reporter,  and  come  back  to  me  in 
this  idiotic  way !  A  reporter  daunted  by  a  woman  in 
hysterics!  A  well-regulated  newspaper  man  would 
have  told  her  that,  for  the  sake  of  her  newspaper-read- 
ing friends,  she  must  respect  his  memory  by  relating 
his  history.  This  sort  of  thing  will  soon  settle  your 
fate,  young  man.  As  for  your  sorrow — bah !  How- 
ever, it  is  not  too  late.  Let  me  see ;  it  is  twelve  o'clock. 
Go  back  to  the  house  as  quickly  as  you  can,  and  see 
that  the  story  is  here  inside  of  an  hour." 

Robinson  had  flushed,  but  now  he  grew  pale.  He 
was  a  human  boy,  who  had  not  yet  acquired  the  art  of 
looking  upon  death  through  a  haze  of  printing  ink. 
Nor  did  it  seem  possible  to  him  that  he  would  ever  be 
able  to  dip  into  such  anguish  as  he  had  just  seen,  for 
bread  and  butter. 

"I  cannot  go  back,  Mr.  Green,"  he  said.  "I — I — 
wouldn't  face  that  woman  again  for  fifty  dollars.  I 
couldn't.  It  was  too  harrowing." 

The  night  city  editor  lit  a  cigar,  threw  aside  the 
match,  bit  his  lip  and  was  calm. 

"Very  well,"  he  said.  "But  you  will  read  Hodge's 
obituary  notice  in  the  paper,  just  the  same.  I  advise 
you  to  do  so,  not  that  I  am  interested  in  your  educa- 
tion." 

Then  he  called  up  a  sallow  youth,  known  to  the  office 
as  "Nervy  Thomas"  and  gave  him  his  instructions,  as 
follows :  "Hodge  died,  this  evening.  He  was  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Stock  Exchange.  We  want  twenty 
lines  about  him  to-morrow.  Go  up  to  his  house  in  West 
Thirty-ninth  Street  and  get  the  notice  from  Mrs. 


6  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Hodge.     And  hurry  back,  because  at  one  o'clock  you 
will  have  to  go  to  Chambers  Street  Hospital." 

The  sallow  youth  looked  rather  bored.  An  obituary 
notice  was  an  unprofitable  assignment,  and  a  mere 
twenty-line  notice  irritating.  Had  it  been  a  question 
of  two  columns  about  poor  Hodge  he  would  have 
jumped  at  his  task,  and  from  a  weeping  widow  and  a 
sorrowing  household  have  dredged  a  rich  reward  in 
that  coveted  dimension  of  journalism  generally  called 
"space." 

"Couldn't  you  get  it?"  he  asked  Robinson,  in  a  surly 
tone,  on  his  way  out. 

"No,"  replied  Robinson.  "The  widow  was  in  such  a 
state  of  mind  that  she  couldn't  talk." 

The  sallow  youth  laughed  grimly.  "Methinks  I 
know  those  widows,"  he  said.  "They  weep  still  more 
next  day  when  they  find  no  notices  in  the  papers.  Rob- 
inson, you  make  me  smile." 

The  incident  faded  palely  from  the  night  city  editor's 
highly  sensitive  mental  plates.  It  was  an  insignificant 
detail  in  a  soul-crushing  routine.  He  had  no  sympathy 
with  people  who  died  at  such  inconvenient  times.  It 
was  bad  enough  when  they  were  nationally  important. 
It  was  stupid  and  annoying  when  they  were  of  mere 
passing  local  interest.  The  night  city  editor  took  from 
a  folded  white  paper  a  square  ham  sandwich,  and  as 
his  teeth  closed  upon  its  elastic  substance  he  was  at  ease 
again,  or  as  much  at  ease  as  a  man  can  be  who,  through 
no  psychic  intuition,  is  haunted  forever  by  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  fire,  a  wreck,  a  suicide,  a  car  strike,  or  a 
railway  catastrophe.  In  Newspaper  Row  anything 
may  happen,  and  everything  should  happen.  The  owls 
had  no  sympathy  with  the  stagnant  happiness  of  the 
many. 

Mr.  Green  had  scarcely  brushed  the  last  crumb  of 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  7 

the  departed  sandwich  from  the  corrugations  of  his 
waistcoat  before  his  routine  again  confronted  him. 
This  time  routine  wore  a  rosy  and  a  smiling  face,  and 
was  represented  by  an  energetic  young  man  all  aglow 
with  the  attractive  magnetism  of  colossal  self-assur- 
ance. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Green,"  said  this  rubicund  owl-devotee, 
"I  saw  the  Queen  of  Tahiti,  and  I've  got  a  beat.  It's 
a  great  story,  and  you'll  roar  when  you  hear  how  I 
got  it." 

There  was  no  responsive  smile  in  the  flaccid  solem- 
nity of  Mr.  Green's  blotting-paper  face.  Yet  the  word 
"beat" — that  talismanic  sesame  to  the  subliminal  con- 
sciousness of  Newspaper  Row— caught  his  ear  and 
tickled  it  coquettishly.  A  "beat"  is  the  exclusive  pos- 
session by  one  owl  of  a  piece  of  news.  It  is  also 
known  as  a  "scoop"  in  New  York  Owldom.  Poor,  de- 
luded young  owls  fritter  away  their  substance  in  pur- 
suit of  this  most  elusive  and  demoralizing  commodity. 
When  they  are  older  they  realize  their  folly,  for  a 
"beat"  is  often  secured  at  the  cost  of  all  loyalty.  It  an- 
tagonizes other  owls,  and,  in  the  long  run,  avails  its 
possessor  of  very  little.  When  an  owl  is  "beaten"  his 
lot  is  a  sad  one ;  when  he  obtains  the  "beat"  the  credit 
generally  goes  to  his  lord  and  master. 

"Come,  Jones,"  said  Mr.  Green,  pettishly.  "If  you 
have  interviewed  the  Queen  of  Tahiti  you  have  merely 
done  what  you  were  sent  to  do.  Sit  down  and  write 
your  story,  and  you  can  talk  afterward.  You  are  sim- 
ply disturbing  the  office." 

Jones,  however,  had  no  idea  of  extinguishing  him- 
self. "You  must  listen  to  me,  Mr.  Green,"  he  said, 
"for  you  will  surely  appreciate  my  enterprise.  I  don't 
often  throw  bouquets  at  myself,  but  this  time  your  little 
Jonesey  was  right  in  it." 


8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

The  night  city  editor  frowned  at  this  display  of  inele- 
gance and  wasted  enthusiasm.  Still,  enthusiasm  of 
any  sort  was  rare  in  Newspaper  Row.  It  was  blighted 
early  in  its  threatening  efflorescence,  as  a  rule.  Green 
prepared  himself  to  listen. 

"Well,"  began  the  rosy  reporter,  "we  were  all  at  the 
hotel.  Every  paper  in  town  was  represented.  I  think 
there  were  about  twelve  of  us  in  all  waiting  to  inter- 
view the  Queen.  We  sent  up  our  cards,  and  were 
ready  to  follow  them  when  the  bidding  came.  But  we 
were  disappointed.  The  Queen  positively  refused  to 
be  seen.  She  sent  down  word  that  she  was  travelling 
incognita,  that  her  visit  had  no  official  significance,  and 
that  she  had  nothing  whatsoever  to  say.  It  was  no 
use  persisting,  for  this  was  her  ultimatum.  The  fel- 
lows saw  that  it  was  absurd  to  waste  further  time. 
But  something  told  me  to  stay.  I  hated  to  get  left. 
There  and  then  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I'd  see  that 
foolish  old  Queen  and  rout  her  out  of  her  exclusive- 
ness,  or  know  the  reason  why." 

Jones  paused  for  effect,  and  also  for  breath.  Mr. 
Green  was  listening,  but  he  didn't  care  to  pretend  that 
he  was  too  deeply  interested,  and  turned  over  various 
papers  on  his  desk,  as  though  he  were  selecting  some- 
thing vitally  particular  from  their  midst. 

"So  I  stayed  at  the  hotel,"  Jones  resumed.  "I  waited 
by  the  elevator,  for  I  reasoned  to  myself  that  a  Queen 
travelling  incognita  was  not  going  to  stay  all  day  in  the 
sanctity  of  her  own  room.  I  grew  chummy  with  the  ele- 
vator boy,  and  gave  him  a  couple  of  tickets  that  I  hap- 
pened to  have  in  my  pocket  for  the  Bicycle  Show  at  the 
Madison  Square  Garden.  He  was  tickled  to  death.  Pres- 
ently the  elevator  descended  and  a  couple  of  ladies  got 
out,  and  walked  across  the  hall  into  the  restaurant. 
That's  the  Queen  and  her  companion,'  whispered  the 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  9 

elevator  boy,  giving  me  a  nudge.  I  blessed  him  for 
the  cue  and  watched  them.  I  waited  until  I  had  seen 
them  order  dinner,  and  then,  promptly  and  unhesitat- 
ingly, went  into  the  restaurant  and  sat  down  at  their 
table.  The  Queen — a  very  nice-looking  woman — gave 
a  start,  and  her  companion  glared  and  muttered,  'A  re- 
porter !'  I  bowed,  and  told  them  that  it  was  quite  true ; 
that  I  was  a  reporter.  I  informed  the  Queen  that  I 
had  sworn  I  would  talk  to  her,  and,  as  she  had  refused 
to  see  me  officially,  I  had  taken  that  course.  At  first 
the  lady  looked  very  angry ;  then  she  burst  out  laugh- 
ing. 'You  are  the  cheekiest  and  most  audacious  crea- 
ture I  have  ever  met/  she  said ;  but  the  tears  were  roll- 
ing down  her  face  and  I  knew  that  I  had  won.  Then 
they  gradually  began  to  look  upon  it  as  a  supreme 
joke.  They  gave  me  a  glass  of  claret,  and  the  Queen 
grew  so  chatty  that  I  couldn't  get  in  a  word  edgeways. 
I  felt  I  was  a  howling  success.  She  told  me  every 
thing  she  knew,  and  in  half  an  hour  she  was  describing 
her  costumes  to  me — peplums,  and  frills,  and  flounces, 
cut  on  the  bias.  When  I  at  last  got  up  to  go,  she  again 
pretended  to  be  very  angry.  But — say,  Mr.  Green — 
that  Queen's  a  pretty  nice  girl,  and  don't  you  for- 
get it." 

The  night  city  editor  smiled  indulgently.  Jones  was 
certainly  a  good  reporter,  and  one  day  he  would  make 
his  mark,  unless  somebody  killed  him  for  his  well-pre- 
served self-assurance.  The  tired  owls  in  the  office  had 
stopped  to  drink  in  this  loquacity.  Mr.  Green  sent  the 
happy  owl-caterer  to  write  his  wrenched  interview  as 
quickly  as  possible. 

"You  might  say  in  your  article,"  he  suggested,  "that 
the  Queen  selected  this  paper  as  her  mouthpiece,  as 
she  always  reads  and  enjoys  it  in  her  native  land." 

"Certainly,"    replied    Jones,    with    a    mischievous 


io  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

snicker.  "I'll  reserve  my  true  story  of  highway  rob- 
bery for  my  memoirs." 

A  senile  reporter,  with  a  bibulous  nose  and  clothes 
that  had  greened  in  the  service  of  Owldom,  entered  at 
this  moment.  His  eyes  were  watery ;  he  appeared  to  be 
in  pain;  he  looked  like  the  very  irony  of  Newspaper 
Row,  considered  as  a  "literary  locality."  Nobody  paid 
any  attention  to  him,  for  he  was  never  interesting.  He 
did  most  of  the  cheap  jobs  in  the  office,  and  generally 
sat  there,  night  after  night,  fretting  away  his  poor  old 
bones  in  the  despondent  journalistic  requirement 
known  as  "emergency  duty." 

"I've  had  an  accident  to-night,  Mr.  Green,"  he  said, 
"and  I  think  the  paper  ought  to  back  me  up  and  see  that 
justice  is  done.  You  know  you  sent  me  to  the  fire  at 
the  Orpheum  Theatre.  I  took  my  fire  badge  with  me 
and  pinned  it,  as  usual,  to  the  lapel  of  my  coat.  But 
this  is — this  is  an  old  coat" — the  weak,  pink-lidded 
old  eyes  tried  to  read  the  night  city  editor's  rather  con- 
temptuous glance — "and  the  lapel  fell  back.  Well,  I 
forced  my  way  through  the  crowd  and  the  fire  line.  A 
policeman  who  could  not  see  my  badge  came  up,  and 
before  I  could  explain  that  I  was  a  reporter  and  point  to 
my  badge  he  had  clubbed  me.  Oh,  what  a  clubbing  I 
got !  You  understand,  Mr.  Green,  that  at  my  age  .  .  ." 

The  old  voice  broke  down.  The  reporter  was  prob- 
ably sixty  years  old.  For  two  decades  of  his  withered 
life  he  had  splashed  aside  the  indignities  of  his  calling, 
or,  if  they  had  proved  too  insistent,  had  drenched  him- 
self into  vinous  oblivion.  The  traces  of  this  latter 
course  had  tinted  his  nose.  This  last  insult,  attended  as 
it  was  by  physical  pain,  was  too  much  for  him.  His 
appeal  to  Mr.  Green  was  quite  unusual. 

The  night  city  editor  was  not  an  unkind  man.  Jour- 
nalism had  blunted  his  finer  perception  and  glazed  the 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  n 

sentimentality  that  he  had  possessed  in  his  teens.  He 
could  not  help  smiling  at  poor  old  Tomlinson's  predica- 
ment. It  appealed  to  a  rudimentary  sense  of  humor 
that  was  very  rarely  called  into  play. 

"The  policeman  apologized  after  he  had  clubbed 
me,"  Tomlinson  went  on,  "but  he  laughed,  and  I  could 
have  struck  him.  My  point  is  this :  These  men  should 
not  be  allowed  the  indiscriminate  use  of  clubs.  It  is 
an  outrage,  a  scandal,  and  a  disgrace.  This  paper 
should  advocate  the  abolition  of  clubs.  The  sympathy 
of  the  public  would  be  with  such  a  movement.  Whew  ! 
my  shoulder !  .  .  .  how  it  aches !  .  .  ." 

"Come,  come,  Tomlinson,"  said  the  night  city  editor, 
sternly,  "write  up  your  story  and  go  home.  The  audi- 
ence, I  understand,  had  left  long  before  the  fire  oc- 
curred, so  that  it  is  not  a  very  thrilling  affair.  I  pre- 
sume that  the  theatre  was  amply  secured  by  insur- 
ance ?" 

"I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  care!"  the  old  reporter 
cried.  "You  don't  suppose  that  after  such  treatment 
as  I  received  I  felt  like  worrying  about  insurance?" 

The  last  vestige  of  his  slender  altruism  left  the  night 
city  editor.  The  faint  suspicion  of  human  sympathy 
that  had  dawned  upon  him  as  Tomlinson  narrated  his 
tale  of  woe,  died  quickly  away. 

"So,"  he  said  icily,  "the  readers  of  this  paper  are 
to  be  left  on  their  fire  story,  forsooth,  because  a  wide- 
awake policeman  happens  to  have  done  his  duty.  It 
was  not  his  fault  that  your  badge  was  hidden.  It  was 
your  fault.  Unless  the  story  is  fully  told  by  you  I  shall 
fine  you  severely.  Manage  as  best  you  can,  but  I 
insist  upon  every  detail  being  written  in  full." 

The  old  man  dragged  himself  away.  His  anger 
was  dead.  The  very  suggestion  of  fine  had  carried 
its  dreary  weight.  Salary  day  was  all  that  he  lived  for, 


12  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  his  pittance  could  brook  no  subtraction  exercise. 
Had  he  been  younger  he  might  have  protested  more 
effectively.  But  his  race  was  nearly  run,  and  the  owls 
blinked  discouragingly  at  his  increasing  store  of  years. 
He  bent  his  aching  shoulder  to  his  task,  and  before  the 
paper  went  to  press  he  had  secured  the  story. 

The  night  city  editor  ate  another  sandwich  and  drank 
coffee  from  a  thick  white  cup  without  a  handle.  The 
sallow  youth  whose  mission  it  had  been  to  give  the  de- 
funct Hodge  a  "send-off"  into  the  next  world  returned, 
still  surly,  but  completely  successful.  He  had,  him- 
self, held  a  bottle  of  smelling  salts  to  the  widow's  nose 
while  she  hysterically  answered  his  questions  as  to  her 
dead  husband's  career.  Journalism  was  satisfied,  and 
an  obituary  paragraph  was  respectfully  reared. 

And  still  the  telegraph  clicked,  and  the  telephone 
tinkled,  and  the  messengers  shuffled  in,  and  the  pens 
reluctantly  squeaked,  and  the  electric  fans  whizzed,  and 
the  office  boys  whispered,  and  the  type-writer  tam- 
tam'd,  and  through  the  open  window  came  the  distant 
whirr  of  the  elevated  trains  and  blatant  cable-cars. 


CHAPTER  II. 

HE  figures  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  rapidly 
crossing  City  Hall  Park,  approached  the  owls' 
nests.  The  man  was  young,  but  in  the  elec- 
tric glare  he  looked  somewhat  haggard  and 
care-streaked.  He  wore  evening  dress,  and  his  over- 
coat was  thrown  open  so  as  to  reveal  that  conventional 
garb  of  sleek  respectability.  The  girl  was  also  young. 
A  bloom  that  was  not  necessarily  of  youth,  however, 
tinted  her  cheeks,  her  lips  were  reddened  into  a 
faithful  caricature  of  Cupid's  bow,  and  her  hair  was 
chemically  golden  and  artistically  dishevelled.  She 
was  rather  flashily  dressed,  and  the  unusual  gleam  of 
shoulders  through  her  open  cloak  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  somnolent  park  loungers. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  nest  to  which  allusion  has 
already  been  made,  the  man  and  woman  stopped. 

"I'll  leave  you  now,  Sallie,"  he  said,  "if  you  are  quite 
sure  you  don't  want  me  to  see  you  home.  I  don't  in 
the  least  mind  waiting  until  you  have  turned  in  your 
copy,  you  know,  if  you  would  prefer  it.  You  know 
that." 

"Go  home,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Sallie,  carelessly.  "I 
shall  be  an  hour,  at  least,  and  Mr.  Childers  will  ride 
up  with  me  in  the  Elevated  as  far  as  Twenty-third 
Street.  Thanks  for  your  escort,  old  man.  And  now, 
your  humble,  but  beautiful  friend,  Sarah — otherwise 
Sallie — Sydenham,  will  give  the  general  public  a  taste 
of  her  quality.  Yes,  Mr.  Covington,  the  spirit  is  about 
to  move  your  coy  young  friend,  Sarah.  Good-night 
— and  be  good." 

He  was  about  to  leave  her,  but  something  was  evi- 


14  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

dently  preying  upon  his  mind — something1  that  he 
hated  to  say,  because  it  was  so  pharisaical.  So  he 
spoke  quietly,  diffidently,  and  rather  nervously. 

"It  was  a  horrid  play,  Sallie,  wasn't  it?  It  was  a 
disgraceful  thing.  But,  if  I  were  you,  I  should  dismiss 
it  in  a  few  words.  After  all — after  all — you  are  a 
woman." 

He  looked  at  the  sensational  little  girl  standing  near 
him  and  sighed.  How  jealously  the  owls  seemed  to 
blink!  Sallie  laughed.  Her  laughter  began  tremu- 
lously, but  it  gathered  strength  as  it  went  on,  and  it 
ended  with  a  peal  that  sounded  quite  genuine. 

"Don't  be  silly,  Charlie,"  she  said  presently.  "You 
mean  well,  but  you  really  are  a  dreadful  Philistine. 
Thanks  for  remembering  that  I  am  a  woman.  I 
thought  you  had  forgotten  it  long  ago.  However,  I 
can't  help  it,  you  know — I  really  can't.  It  is  not  my 
fault.  I  had  nothing  to  say  in  the  matter.  Good-bye. 
You  are  making  me  late." 

She  trudged  up  the  steps  and  into  the  office.  Charlie 
Covington  had  nothing  more  to  say.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders,  lifted  his  hat,  and  withdrew.  At  that  hour, 
with  the  spectral  park  stretching  out  like  a  ghostly  map 
before  him,  the  departure  of  Sallie  Sydenham  seemed 
rather  pathetic.  A  few  moments  later  he  was  at  the 
Park  Place  station  on  his  way  uptown. 

"Well,  Miss  Sydenham,"  said  the  night  city  editor, 
as  the  girl  entered  the  office  looking  as  though  she  had 
escaped  from  the  dressing-room  of  a  theatre,  "you're 
late.  Did  the  new  play  amount  to  anything?" 

His  face  had  lighted  up,  not  because  Sallie  wore  pet- 
ticoats, which  in  Newspaper  Row  are  not  unusual,  and 
are  generally  as  uninteresting  as  mere  trousers,  but  be- 
cause the  girl  amused  him.  She  was  in  great  favor 
in  the  nest,  for  she  wrote  brightly  and  unconvention- 


A  Girl   Who  Wrote  15 

ally.  She  was  also  looked  upon  as  quite  irrepressible, 
and  her  bump  of  reverence  was  merely  rudimentary. 
The  reporters  stopped  writing  as  she  entered  and 
looked  at  her  hopefully,  for  she  ran  in  other  grooves 
than  they,  and  she  brought  with  her  a  whiff  of  the  real, 
human,  outside  world. 

"I've  got  a  story  that  will  curl  your  hair,  Mr.  Green," 
she  said,  throwing  aside  her  cloak  and  revealing  a  bod- 
ice cut  rather  low,  but  one  that  was  decidedly  shabby. 
(Mr.  Green  had  no  hair,  but  did  not  seem  pained  by 
the  inelegant  figure  of  speech.)  "That  play  will  be  the 
most  thoroughly  discussed  topic  in  New  York  to-mor- 
row. It  is  simply  uproariously — improper.  You 
don't  mind,  Mr.  Green,  if  I  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  it  is — indecent?  The  girl — the  heroine — was  a 
very  sweet  creature,  who  imagined  that  she  had  been 
led  astray,  but — er — wasn't  quite  sure.  During  an  en- 
tire act  her  uncertainty  preyed  upon  her  mind — and 
also  upon  ours." 

Sallie  laughed,  and  the  night  city  editor  sprang  from 
his  seat  as  though  it  had  been  stuffed  with  elastic  en- 
thusiasm. The  young  men  in  the  office  looked  at  Miss 
Sydenham  through  their  smiles.  Two  or  three  of 
them — the  youngest — colored  slightly  as  they  realized 
that  they  were  listening  to  the  chatter  of  a  girl.  The 
others,  who  prided  themselves  upon  unbudging  Bo- 
hemianism,  were  eager  and  amused.  This  was  spice, 
coming  from  a  woman's  lips,  and  they  absorbed  it 
greedily  as  nocturnal  seasoning  to  their  insipid  work. 

"The  audience  was  aghast,"  Sallie  went  on;  "because, 
as  you  know,  Mr.  Green,  New  York  loves  to  be  proper. 
I  don't  see  why,  do  you?  Personally,  I  don't  believe 
in  advertising  such  a  play,  because  it  was  silly.  No 
girl  could  possibly.  .  .  .  But  really,  Mr.  Green,  I 
suppose  you  are  not  an  authority  on  girls.  What  I  was 


1 6  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

going  to  say  was  that  I  can  write  something  exceed- 
ingly meaty,  if  you  like.  Shall  I  let  myself  loose?" 

Mr.  Green  was  standing  where  that  elastic  enthusi- 
asm had  pitched  him.  His  face  was  aglow,  and  he 
looked  almost  happy.  This  was  better  than  a  tame 
"obituary."  An  exclusive  interview  with  the  Queen 
of  Tahiti  was  small  potatoes  beside  it.  The  fire  at  the 
Orpheum  could  go  and  burn — wherever  it  chose. 

"Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said  majestically,  "to  what  is 
the  stage  coming?  To  what  is  our  dramatic  license 
leading  us?  Are  the  licentious  days  of  the  Restora- 
tion (was  it  the  Restoration?)  returning  to  us?  When 
simple,  budding  girls  are  taken  by  their  mothers  to  see 
plays  that  must  bring  the  blush  of  shame  to  their 
cheeks  it  is  time  to  cry  halt.  The  realm  of  fiction  is 
large  and  chaste — the  realm  of  life  is  larger  and 
chaster — yet  a  degenerate  stage  must,  forsooth,  seek 
material  in  the  sewers,  and  fling  its  reeking  miasma 
in  the  noses  of  a  misguided  public." 

"That's  capital,"  said  Sallie,  biting  her  pen.  "Thanks 
for  the  'reeking  miasma!'  I  shouldn't  have  thought 
of  it.  But  I  won't  say  anything  about  'simple,  budding 
girls.'  There  are  none  nowadays.  You  malign  the 
sex,  my  dear  sir.  We  decline  to  be  simple,  and  we 
never  bud.  We  are  mature,  or  we  are  immature ;  there 
isn't  much  difference.  I  merely  mention  this,  dear  Mr. 
Green.  I  happen  to  be  a  girl,  you  know,  and — well, 
you  don't." 

As  she  made  this  remark  in  quick  flippancy  she  was 
surprised  to  find  that  she  was  thinking  of  Charlie  Cov- 
ington.  He  had  reminded  her  of  her  sex  just  a  few 
moments  ago,  and  now  she  was  launching  a  similar 
suggestion  at  the  night  city  editor. 

"Pitch  in,"  said  Mr.  Green,  emphatically.  "Let  us 
take  a  stand.  Let  us  go  on  record  as  absolutely  shud- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  17 

dering  at  this  play.  Tell  the  story  of  the  entire  piece, 
omitting  nothing,  and — I  wonder  if  I  could  get  three 
seats  for  to-morrow  night.  It's  my  day  off,  and  I 
should  like  to  see  something  good." 

The  reporters  were  still  smiling.  Sallie  Sydenham 
was  such  a  gorgeous  joke!  One  of  them,  who  had 
been  reared  in  old-fashioned  courtesy,  brought  her  a 
chair.  She  smiled  at  him,  surprised,  but  grateful,  and 
sat  down.  Another  gave  her  some  "copy"  paper,  and 
a  third  offered  her  a  cigarette.  She  pretended  to  look 
dreadfully  shocked  at  this.  But  the  young  man  who 
offered  the  cigarette  did  not  notice  that  through  the 
bloom  on  her  face  she  flushed  slightly.  Mr.  Green  still 
stood,  reflective,  watching  her  closely. 

"How — how  did  the  play  affect  you  as  a  woman?" 
he  asked  rather  timidly.  "I  don't  mean  as  a  critic — but 
— er — as  a  woman." 

Sally  looked  serious,  but  for  one  second  only.  Quick- 
ly through  her  mind  was  flashed  the  idea  that  this  ques- 
tion was  unnecessary.  She  was  not  earning  her  living 
by  means  of  a  pictorial  display  of  reluctant  woman- 
hood. Reluctant  womanhood  was  charming — outside 
of  Newspaper  Row. 

"It  amused  me  immensely,"  she  said.  "I  love  these 
problems — as  farcical  possibilities,  you  know.  I  kept 
thinking  about  that  heroine,  and  wondering — no,  I 
sha'n't  tell  you  what  it  was  I  wondered.  She  looked  so 
sorry  for  herself,  poor  thing.  She  was  in  such  a  state 
of  agitation.  I  don't  know  why.  Where  ignorance  is 
bliss.  ...  I  must  really  begin,  Mr.  Green." 

The  night  city  editor  looked  slightly  embarrassed. 
Accustomed  as  he  was  to  the  unconventionality  of  Sal- 
lie  Sydenham,  her  amazing  candor  shocked  him.  Even 
the  men  in  the  office  would  have  frowned  at  the  task  of 
chronicling  this  dramatic  obliquity.  Yet  it  merely 


1 8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

amused  Miss  Sydenham,  and  not  a  serious  thought  was 
filtered  by  it  through  her  mental  sieves.  Was  she 
merely  lacking  in  moral  appreciation?  He  looked  at 
her  face  as  she  sat  there  beginning  her  article.  It  was 
as  bland  as  that  of  a  fledgeling.  The  light  from  the 
green-shaded  electric  globe  fell  in  a  yellow  clot  on  her 
chemically-prepared  tresses.  He  saw  that  she  was  a 
graceful  girl.  The  nape  of  her  neck  was  almost  clas- 
sic. But  she  was  so  badly  dressed  .  .  .  this  was 
the  first  time  he  had  ever  really  thought  about  her. 
Perhaps  these  observations  were  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  listening  to  a  story  from  her  lips  that  would 
have  been  whispered  in  a  smoking-room.  He  walked 
away  and  was  at  once  night  city  editor  again.  He 
wondered  if  it  would  be  any  use  "ringing  up"  Dr. 
Parkhurst,  and  asking  him  to  roast  the  stage.  He 
knew  that  the  eminent  clergyman  would  hail  the  chance 
of  roasting  anything,  even  at  a  moment's  notice.  Then 
he  sat  down  and  wrote  to  the  theatre  for  three 
seats.  Mrs.  Green  must  positively  see  that  play.  He 
bad  intended  taking  her  to  a  performance  of  "Much 
Ado  About  Nothing"  at  the  Broadhurst,  but  she  was 
a  busy  little  woman  and  had  no  time  for  Shakespeare 
— except  as  a  sort  of  refuge  for  the  destitute. 

In  the  meantime  Sallie  Sydenham  wrote  fast  and 
furiously.  Occasionally  she  smiled,  and  once  she 
laughed  aloud.  After  the  laughter  she  paused  for  a 
moment  and  erased  what  she  had  written.  Then  she 
looked  rather  affectionately  at  the  erasure  and  laughed 
again.  Sheet  after  sheet  she  filled.  Periodically  some- 
body came  up  and  took  the  finished  sheets  away  from 
her.  Nothing  daunted  her.  The  noise  in  the  office 
was  simply  a  faint  murmur  in  her  ears. 

She  rose  at  last,  and  handed  the  final  sheet  to  Mr. 
Green.  A  great  fatigue  seemed  to  possess  her.  Her 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  19 

eyes  had  lost  their  brightness,  her  flippancy  had  van- 
ished ;  the  smiling  expression  with  which  she  had  en- 
tered the  office  had  been  replaced  by  one  that  seemed 
to  suggest  melancholy.  Her  hair  had  escaped  from  its 
confining  pins,  but  she  did  not  seek  to  rearrange  it. 
She  put  on  her  cloak  in  a  listless  way,  and  fastened  on 
her  large,  gaudy  hat  rather  defiantly. 

"I  suppose  that  Mr.  Childers  is  still  in  his  office?" 
she  asked,  in  a  tired  voice,  of  one  of  the  office  boys. 

Yes,  Mr.  Childers  was  still  there.  Miss  Sydenham 
nodded  a  good-night  to  Mr.  Green  and  threw  a  wan 
smile  at  the  reporters.  One  of  them — the  polite  youth 
who  had  brought  her  a  chair — told  her  that  he  was 
going  uptown  and  would  be  glad  to  see  her  home.  She 
thanked  him  gratefully,  but  she  would  not  trouble  him. 
The  young  man  murmured  a  few  diffident  words,  and 
seemed  to  be  rather  ashamed  of  himself. 

"Good-night,  Miss  Sydenham,"  called  out  the  night 
city  editor.  "Your  article  is  a  scorcher,  and  will  be 
quite  as  much  talked  about  as  the  play.  Ha !  ha !  You 
know  how  to  call  a  spade  a  spade,  don't  you  ?" 

Mr.  Green  laughed  in  supreme  good  humor.  His 
labors  would  end  very  shortly,  and  he  felt  delighted  to 
think  that  to-morrow's  newspaper  would  not  be  inef- 
fective. Everything  came  to  him  who  waited — in 
Owldom,  as  in  other  realms.  Without  any  effort  this 
excellent  "stuff"  from  Sallie  Sydenham's  pen  had  fallen 
at  his  feet.  He  rubbed  his  hands  jubilantly,  unfurled 
a  ham  sandwich,  and  masticated  it  slowly  and  grate- 
fully. 

The  reporters  were  leaving,  for  the  world  had  gone 
to  bed  and  there  was  nothing  more  for  them  to  do. 
The  world,  in  its  slumber,  is  not  interesting  in  News- 
paper Row.  It  retired,  perhaps,  unnecessarily  late, 
and  it  occasionallv  misbehaved  itself  at  the  most  un- 


20  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

seemly  hours.  But  even  Owldom  has  its  rules  and 
regulations.  Mr.  Green  saw  that  his  force  was  van- 
ishing. He  stretched  himself  and  yawned. 

Outside  in  the  corridor  Sallie  Sydenham's  high- 
heeled  shoes  clanked  over  the  tessellated  halls.  These 
were  almost  deserted.  Once  or  twice  an  owl  flitted 
across  her  path  and  stared  at  her  as  though  she  were 
a  curiosity.  She  stood  for  a  moment  and  leaned 
against  the  wall.  She  was  certainly  unusually  ex- 
hausted. None  of  the  men  seemed  to  know  the  mean- 
ing of  fatigue,  and  yet  they  had  been  laboring  far  more 
diligently  than  she.  She  braced  herself  up  with  the 
thought  that  she  might  have  been  sewing  all  day  .  .  . 
or  cooking  all  day  ...  or  teaching  all  day  ...  or 
doing  a  dozen  of  the  other  absurd  things  that  tradition 
has  assigned  to  women.  She  might  have  been  mar- 
ried, and  the  mother  of  a  family  .  .  . 

Miss  Sydenham  paused  at  the  door  of  the  managing 
editor's  room  and  knocked.  A  jovial,  youthful  voice 
said,  "Come  in."  She  fastened  her  cloak  quickly,  set 
her  hat  straight  upon  her  yellow  hair,  opened  the  door, 
and  entered.  It  was  a  very  restful  little  room,  with  a 
carpet,  a  few  pictures  on  the  walls,  a  fresh  and  bracing 
atmosphere,  and  a  certain  suggestion  of  refinement. 
All  this  appealed  to  her.  Mr.  Childers  sat  in  his  chair, 
and  nodded  smilingly  as  he  saw  her. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ACK  CHILDERS,  the  managing  editor,  was 
known  in  Newspaper  Row  as  a  "white  man." 
This  tribute  was  reverent  testimony  to  his 
numerous  graces.  He  had  been  for  many 
years  in  Owldom,  but  his  disposition  was  unspoiled, 
his  mind  was  gentle  and  sympathetic,  and  his  sincerity 
unquestionable.  He  was  quite  unusual — in  Owldom. 
Few  survived  the  ordeals  through  which  he  had  passed. 
Journalism  had  hurled  its  abuses  at  Childers,  as  at  the 
rest  of  the  crowd ;  but  the  managing  editor  seemed  to 
have  escaped  its  influences.  He  was  absolutely  hu- 
man. He  could  look  upon  the  real  events  of  life  from 
an  unfettered  man's  point  of  view.  News  came  to  the 
office  that  grieved  him,  that  amused  him,  that  angered 
him.  He  could  still  experience  ordinary  sensations. 
The  blunting  of  the  finer  perceptions,  that  is  a  sure 
though  gradual  process  in  Newspaper  Row,  was  an 
evolution  unknown  to  him.  He  despised  in  his  heart 
of  hearts  the  men  who  won  the  golden  approval  of 
journalism.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  reporters 
who  impertinently  wriggled  behind  the  curtains  of  pri- 
vate life,  in  their  pursuit  of  duty  and  in  their  quest  of 
sensation.  He  did  the  prescribed  thing  by  them,  as 
managing  editor,  but  he  would  not  have  cared  to  asso- 
ciate with  them  personally.  In  fact,  he  was  a  "white 
man"  as  far  as  his  instincts  went.  His  subordinates 
adored  him,  and  went  to  him  with  all  their  grievances, 
assured  of  his  human  help.  It  was  almost  a  pleasure 
to  have  a  grievance,  so  that  Jack  Childers  could 
straighten  out  its  wrinkles  and  convolutions.  He  did 
it  so  easily,  and  with  such  sincerity. 


22  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Mr.  Childers  wore  good  clothes,  ate  good  meals,  and 
was  a  member  of  several  reputable  clubs.  The  neglect 
of  personal  appearance,  that  begins  when  the  owls 
blink,  was  something  that  he  could  not  understand. 
His  clothes  came  from  the  finest  tailor ;  his  collars  and 
neckties  fitted  into  the  very  latest  styles ;  his  hats  and 
shoes  were  discarded  with  the  edicts  of  fashion.  Yet 
he  was  not  a  "clothes-wearing  man,"  by  any  means. 
He  would  have  passed  serenely  unnoticed  in  an  ordi- 
nary crowd.  In  a  gathering  of  journalists,  however, 
he  would  have  been  singled  out  instantly. 

Nobody  could  order  a  dinner  more  artistically  than 
Jack  Childers.  The  dinner-discussing  man,  in  usual 
life,  is  a  rather  tiresome  parody,  but  it  was  re- 
freshing to  know  that  Mr.  Childers  had  re- 
tained even  his  gastronomic  refinements.  He  never 
patronized  the  criminal  dyspepsia-breeders  of  the 
neighborhood.  He  felt  sorry  when  he  saw  able- 
bodied  young  men,  whose  fatigued  brains  clamored  for 
nutriment,  sitting  down  at  midnight  to  cold  pie  and 
iced  milk.  It  shocked  him  to  watch  the  night  city 
editor  swallowing  ham  sandwiches  at  hours  when  that 
sort  of  ballast  is  vetoed  by  good  form.  He  classed 
these  offenders  with  the  savages  who  ate  earth  for  the 
sake  of  "filling  up."  Yet  he  was  not  unduly  fastidious, 
and  he  thoroughly  appreciated  good  old-fashioned  Bo- 
hemianism.  But  Murger's  Bohemia  and  that  of  News- 
paper Row  were  severely  dissociated.  The  one  was 
picturesque ;  the  other  was  unwholesome  and  squalid. 

Mr.  Childers  lived  with  an  extremely  strait-laced 
aunt  and  a  highly  unsophisticated  cousin.  At  least, 
the  world  viewed  them  in  that  light.  With  them  he 
occupied  an  ornate  apartment  in  Central  Park  West. 
They  associated  with  "nice"  people,  and  lived  up  to  the 
little  courtesies  and  refinements  of  life.  The  managing 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  23 

editor  did  not  talk  "shop"  with  his  aunt  and  cousin. 
The  jargon  of  Owldom  was  quite  unknown  to  them, 
and  the  machinery  of  journalism  never  whizzed  in  their 
ears.  Their  life  was  not  amusing,  but  it  was  discreet 
and  well-appointed,  and  they  lived  it  quietly  and  tidily. 
It  had  no  frayed  edges  or  threadbare  corners. 

"So  you've  finished,  Miss  Sydenham,"  Mr.  Childers 
said  cordially,  as  Sallie  entered  the  room.  "You  look 
tired." 

Sallie  sat  down  and  felt  the  grateful  influence  of  the 
sanctum.  "I  was  rather  played  out,"  she  said,  "and  I 
thought  I'd  come  in  here  before  going  home.  You  are 
not  busy  ?" 

"I've  finished,"  he  said,  glancing  at  some  papers  and 
pigeonholing  them.  Then,  after  he  had  made  some 
pencilled  notes  upon  a  yellow  pad  before  him,  he  went 
on :  "The  eternal  grind  is  over  for  to-day — or  perhaps 
I  had  better  say  until  later  in  the  day.  Shall  we  ride 
uptown  together?  Or  perhaps  you  have — " 

She  interrupted  him  quickly,  and  he  noticed  that  her 
fingers  trembled  slightly.  "Thank  you  so  much,"  she 
said.  "I  shall  be  very  glad.  I  don't  think  that  any- 
body would  run  away  with  me — no  such  luck !  But 
if  you  don't  mind  me  inflicting  myself  upon  you  once 
more — well,  I'll  do  it."  . 

She  took  up  a  paper  while  he  closed  his  desk,  and 
prepared  himself  for  the  homeward  journey — the  one 
human  event  of  her  day.  He  noticed  how  atrociously 
she  was  dressed.  Her  low-cut  bodice  was  simply 
"faked"  together,  and  her  skirt  was  garish  and  ugly. 
Mr.  Childers  was  not  disposed  to  look  upon  the  femi- 
nine journalist  as  a  woman.  Still,  as  he  had  never  shed 
his  regard  for  the  sex,  in  spite  of  the  quaint  specimens 
with  which  he  came  in  daily  contact,  he  allowed  his 
masculine  eye  a  little  outing  at  Miss  Sydenham's  ex- 


24  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

pense.  Sallie,  as  a  rule,  was  a  great  fund  of  amuse- 
ment to  him.  He  enjoyed  her  chatterbox  utterances, 
and  was  entertained  by  the  quaint  views  of  things  that 
she  invariably  took.  He  liked  riding  uptown  with  her 
in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  when  none  of  the 
friends  for  whose  opinion  he  cared,  could  see  him.  He 
was  not  a  bit  of  a  snob,  but  he  respected  the  proprie- 
ties. They  were  designed  for  general  use,  and  they 
were  very  good  things  in  their  way. 

They  walked  slowly  across  City  Hall  Park,  that 
spread  out  like  a  silver  map  before  them,  bathed  in  an 
argentine  mixture  of  moon  and  electricity.  Battered, 
cheerless  men  dozed  on  the  seats,  and  stragglers 
slouched  furtively  by — with  the  furtiveness  that  comes 
on  at  night,  like  a  fever,  and  disappears  in  the  day- 
time. Jack  Childers,  in  his  fashionably  cut  raglan, 
hurried  as  he  looked  at  this  disconsolate  humanity.  Sal- 
lie  Sydenham  took  some  loose  silver  from  her 
pocket — which  was  hidden  in  the  folds  of  her  dress, 
and  was  difficult  to  extricate — and  gave  it  to  a  gray  old 
man  with  a  hopeless,  wrinkled  face.  Mr.  Childers  stood 
rather  impatiently  while  she  did  this.  Then  he  lighted 
a  cigarette  and  they  moved  quickly  on.  Sallie  chatted 
persistently,  her  temporary  lethargy  dissipated.  She 
was  anxious  to  live  up  to  her  conversational  reputation 
and  to  entertain  her  companion.  It  was  very  easy  to 
amuse  him,  for  he  was  interested  in  everything.  He 
loved  to  hear  her  ruthless  comments  upon  the  men  in 
the  office,  whom  she  saw  with  his  eyes  plus  her  own 
native  drollery.  But  it  was  when  she  discussed  the 
women  of  Owldom  that  his  sense  of  humor  was  espe- 
cially gratified.  She  declined  to  take  them  seriously, 
and  she  saw  all  their  eccentricities  exquisitely  magni- 
fied. She  "had  no  use"  for  any  of  them,  she  always 
said,  and  preferred  the  men.  She  uttered  epigrams 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  25 

at  their  expense,  that  would  have  made  the  fortune 
of  the  average  epigram-monger. 

"I  read  your  article  in  proof  to-night,"  he  said,  when 
they  were  in  the  train.  "It  was  excellent — a  brilliant 
piece  of  newspaper  work.  I  simply  howled  with  laugh- 
ter at  your  description  of  the  heroine." 

Sallie  Sydenham  was  silent.  She  had  been  talking 
with  almost  feverish  exuberance  on  the  topics  that 
pleased  him,  "guying"  everybody,  including  herself. 
This  remark  of  his  embarrassed  her.  She  never 
thought  of  him  when  she  wrote.  She  liked  to  believe 
that  he  was  too  busy  to  occupy  himself  with  her  arti- 
cles. 

"Did  she  really — "  he  began. 

"Oh,  please,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  interrupted,  "I'm 
rather  tired  of  the  subject  after  having  spun  out  a  col- 
umn of  it." 

The  remembrance  of  the  unsavory  heroine  rather 
nauseated  her.  Yet  she  had  laughed  on  the  subject 
with  the  men  in  the  reportorial  room.  She  had  dis- 
cussed the  matter  with  Mr.  Green  in  her  usual  airily 
audacious  way,  and  had  not  been  conscious  of  the  least 
impropriety.  She  had  even  felt  a  sense  of  elation  at 
the  knowledge  that  she  had  secured  what  Owldom 
knows  as  "a  good  story."  And  now  her  evening's  ex- 
perience lay  heavily  upon  her  recollection.  She  looked 
at  the  smooth,  kind,  attractive  face  of  the  man  sitting 
beside  her  on  the  cross-seat  of  the  elevated  train,  and 
an  illogical  sense  of  dissatisfaction  possessed  her.  She 
generally  chatted  about  the  theatres  with  him,  for  he 
rarely  patronized  the  playhouse,  and  preferred  it  at  sec- 
ond-hand from  Sallie's  lips.  To-night  the  theatre  was 
a  singularly  distasteful  subject. 

"That  kind  of  play  can  never  become  popular,"  Mr. 
Childers  said  thoughtfully.  "Human  nature  in- 


26  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

stinctively  recognizes  what  is  good  for  it  and  what  is 
not.  We  like  to  preach  a  little,  in  order  to  hurry  on  the 
intuition,  so  to  speak,  but  things  right  themselves  by 
a  law  as  immutable  as  that  of  gravitation.  Still,  Miss 
Sydenham,  I  congratulate  you.  You  did  the  righteous 
very  well,  indeed.  Everybody  will  want  to  see  a  play 
that  you  lampoon  so  very  cleverly.  And,  between  our- 
selves, it  won't  hurt  them." 

Sallie  did  not  answer.  She  turned  from  him  and 
looked  from  the  window  at  the  rows  of  silent  houses,  in 
which  she  saw  an  occasional  gleam  of  light,  and  the 
outline  of  some  nocturnal  household  overlooked  by  the 
persistent  "Elevated."  That  phrase,  "between  our- 
selves," hurt  her.  He  seemed  to  forget  that,  after  all, 
she  was  a  woman.  She  was  willing  that  he  should 
forget  this  in  the  office,  but  outside  .  .  . 

"If  I  had  known  about  this  play,"  he  went  on,  " 
would  have  gone  with  you  to  the  theatre  to-night.  I 
so  seldom  see  anything,  and  I  should  rather  have  en- 
joyed watching  the  effect  of  this  piece  upon  the  women 
in'the  audience.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  that  there  was 
a  sensation  on  the  tapis?" 

"Don't  you  think"— and  she  tried  to  infuse  her  usual 
spirit  of  flippant  impudence  into  her  words— "that  you 
would  have  been  more  comfortable  at  a  play  of  this  sort 
with  a  man?" 

Mr.  Childers  laughed,  and  looked  at  her  in  keen 
amusement.  There  was  no  doubt  about  it;  she  was 
really  a  very  funny  girl — quite  an  unusual  character. 

"No,"  he  declared  jovially.  "If  you  don't  mind  my 
saying  so,  I  should  have  preferred  being  with  you. 
You  see  things  that  would  not  be  apparent  to  a  man. 
That  is  why  you  are  so  valuable  to  the  office,  my  girl. 
You  are  better  than  a  man.  My  sex  is  too  stern  to  treat 
these  things  humorously.  The  masculine  critic  goes  in 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  27 

for  beautiful  essays  on  morality — which  we  don't  want. 
You  don't.  You  own  the  most  valuable  weapon  of  all 
— the  power  to  show  it  up  under  the  lens  of  ridicule, 
and  to  discuss  it  from  an  unconventional  point  of  view. 
I  read  what  you  said  about  the  heroine  to-night  to  half 
a  dozen  of  the  editorial  writers,  and  they  laughed  so 
that  I  thought  they  would  have  collapsed.  You  see,  I'm 
crowning  you  with  compliments.  You  are  woman 
enough  to  appreciate  them,  I'm  sure." 

"How  well  you  know  us,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  said, 
with  a  laugh  that  was  not  caused  by  sheer  and  undi- 
luted satisfaction.  "It  is  really  quite  marvellous.  Yes, 
I  do  like  compliments.  You  have  just  paid  me  a  very 
pretty  one,  indeed.  Are  you  sure  that  you  realize  it?" 

Jack  Childers  felt  that  perhaps  he  did  not  quite  un- 
derstand her.  He  knew  that  there  was  some  furtive 
sarcasm  in  her  words,  but  he  had  no  idea  where  it 
lurked.  Her  mood  was  an  unusual  one.  Perhaps  she 
was  "guying"  him,  for  her  own  innate  delectation.  He 
had  meant  to  say  extremely  pleasant  things  to  her,  for 
he  sincerely  admired  the  recklessness  of  her  work,  and 
as  a  managing  editor,  cast  in  a  human  mould,  he 
thought  that  encouragement  would  do  her  good.  He 
occasionally  used  it  with — the  other  men.  The  other 
men! 

"If  I  realize  that  I  have  paid  you  a  very  pretty  com- 
pliment?" he  said,  repeating  her  question.  "I  tried  to 
do  so — to  make  it  fit.  Some  girls  like  to  be  told  that 
they  are  pretty  .  .  .  others  that  they  are  clever.  .  .  ." 

"And  others  that  they  are  men,"  she  added,  rather 
defiantly. 

He  laughed  heartily.  Sallie  Sydenham  was  herself 
again,  and  her  pertness  was  reasserting  itself.  He 
did  not  notice  the  defiance  in  her  tone,  perhaps  because 
he  was  not  looking  for  any  such  commodity. 


28  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"Yes,  women  are  strange  creatures,"  he  went  on,  tak- 
ing her  words  at  their  face  valuation.  "You  can  beat 
us  at  so  many  things,  and  you  are  so  vain  about  it.  Men 
are  different.  They  would  be  rather  indignant  if  they 
were  asked  to  write  fashion  articles,  or  advice  to  moth- 
ers, or  household  recipes.  They  would  hate  it.  But 
you — you  are  happy  when  I  tell  you  that  you  write  like 
a  man,  only  much  better  than  the  average  man,  and 
that  your  view  of  subjects  that  generally  shock  him  is 
frankly  entertaining." 

"Yes,  it  makes  me  very  happy,"  she  replied  gravely. 
"And  you,"  she  asked,  after  a  minute's  pause,  "do  you 
find  it  easy,  when  you  are  talking  to  a  woman — a  wo- 
man like  myself,  for  instance — to  forget  that,  after  all, 
she  does  belong  to  the  sex  ?  Does  it — does  it  not  em- 
barrass you,  just  a  little  bit,  at  times?" 

She  did  not  look  at  him  as  she  asked  the  question. 
The  train  had  stopped  at  the  Eighth  Street  station,  and 
she  was  apparently  watching  two  giggling  girls  who 
were  being  propelled  into  the  car  by  a  couple  of  rather 
tough-looking  young  men. 

"At  first  it  was  a  bit  odd,"  Mr.  Childers  answered, 
anxious  to  please  her  (of  course,  it  would  please  her) 
by  not  admitting  that  his  chivalrous  instincts  had  for 
at  least  a  year  violently  rebelled  at  the  anomaly. 
"You  see,  I  was  brought  up  in  such  an  old-fashioned 
way,  to  look  upon  women  as  household  bric-a-brac. 
Even  now,  when  we  have  finished  dinner  at  home,  my 
aunt  and  cousin  would  be  shocked  if  I  did  not  rise  from 
the  dining-room  table  and  hold  the  door  open  while 
they  passed  to  the  drawing-room.  I  mention  that  just 
to  show  you  that  I  was  educated  to  hold  the  sex  in  rev- 
erence. At  first,  as  I  said,  it  was  a  bit  odd  to  over- 
come these  tendencies.  I  did  it  by  positively  refusing 
to  consider  the  newspaper  woman  as  anything  else  but 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  29 

.  a  man.  She  does  a  man's  work,  and  earns  a  man's  sal- 
ary. And  now  it  is  quite  easy,  and  even  amusing. 
And  I  look  upon  you,  Sallie,  as  a  jolly  good  fellow — as 
one  of  the  boys,  in  fact." 

He  was  sincerely  anxious  to  show  her  how  much  he 
thought  of  her.  He  emphasized  the  "jolly  good  fel- 
low" vehemently,  and  when  he  elaborated  the  expres- 
sion into  "one  of  the  boys"  he  felt  that  his  apprecia- 
tive testimony  to  Sallie's  sterling  merit  could  go  no 
further.  He  looked  at  her,  to  note  in  her  face  the 
pleasure  that  he  was  sure  he  had  conferred.  But  Miss 
Sydenham's  eyes  were  enigmatical.  She  was  still 
watching  the  giggling  girls  and  the  rather  tough-look- 
ing young  men  in  the  seats  opposite.  The  boys  were 
calling  the  girls  "peaches"  and  "daisies"  in  fervent, 
normal,  east-side  approval.  It  was  a  somewhat  rowdy 
and  vulgar  quartette,  but  Sallie  saw  in  it  rude  health 
and  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.  These  uncouth  Lu- 
bins  were  not  regarding  their  Dulcineas  as  jolly  good 
fellows.  They  saw  them  in  all  their  pictorial  feminin- 
ity— such  as  it  was.  Sallie  could  not  help  sighing. 
Yet  she  could  imagine  these  girls,  a  few  hours  later, 
with  dust-cloths  on  their  heads,  going  through  a  dozen 
household  duties  that  she  would  have  loathed.  Still 
she  sighed. 

"You  are  very  kind,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  said,  for  he 
was  looking  rather  disappointed  at  the  silence  with 
which  she  received  his  remarks.  "It  is  nice  to  live 
one's  life  as  a  good  fellow.  Petticoats  are  a  horrible 
nuisance,  aren't  they?  How  would  you  like  all  girls 
to  be  good  fellows  ?" 

"Oh,  no — no,  thanks — I  won't  go  so  far  as  that,"  he 
protested  argumentatively.  "One  must  have  contrast. 
The  gentle,  unsophisticated,  girly  girl  is  very  restful. 
I  don't  think  that  we  could  get  along  without  her,  do 


30  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

you,  Miss  Sydenham?  After  all,  we  must  have  our. 
homes,  and  the  jolly  good  fellows  wouldn't  be  happy 
there,  would  they  ?" 

"No,"  she  said,  and  she  laughed  for  so  long  that  the 
giggling  girls  and  the  rather  tough-looking  young  men 
were  silenced.  "They  would  want  to  put  their  feet  on 
the  table,  wouldn't  they?  They  would  sit  and  smoke 
instead  of  attending  to  the  house.  They  would  shock 
all  their  neighbors,  and  bring  grief  to  the  heart  of  the 
landlord.  Oh,  they  would  be  quite  impossible.  They 
would  be  like  fishes  out  of  water.  It  is  so  much  nicer 
for  them  to  associate  fraternally  with  the  Toms,  and 
the  Dicks,  and  the  Harrys,  and  to  do  their  work  for 
them.  Long  live  the  jolly  good  fellows!" 

Mr.  Childers  felt  that  he  had  made  a  hit  with  Sallie 
Sydenham.  He  had  struck  what  they  call  "a  respon- 
sive chord." 

"Suppose  you  had  to  be  gentle  and  unsophisticated," 
he  went  on,  for  a  little  embroidery  on  the  theme  would 
not  be  amiss.  "What  a  gorgeous  joke  you  would  be! 
I  can  imagine  you  ordering  boiled  mutton  for  dinner, 
and  'sorting  the  clothes'  on  Monday  mornings.  You 
really  would  be  awfully  amusing.  I  should  love  to  see 
you  at  it." 

"I  should  be  very  funny,"  said  Sallie,  quietly.  "But 
it  wouldn't  give  me  much  scope.  And  perhaps  even 
you  would  look  upon  me  as  a  failure,  after  a  time,  when 
I  was  forced  to  be  dreadfully  proper." 

"You  couldn't  be,"  he  retorted  gallantly — for  he  was 
always  gallant,  and  it  took  this  unusual  form  in  deal- 
ing with  this  unusual  girl — "you  couldn't  be,  even  if 
you  tried  very  hard.  You  would  make  some  awful 
break,  and  live  up  to  your  reputation." 

"Undoubtedly,"  she  said,  still  very  quietly.  "But  I 
would  sooner  not  try  the  experiment.  It  would  be  so 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  31 

exceedingly  risky.  This  is  Twenty-third  Street,  Mr. 
Childers — my  station.  I  must  hurry.  Good-night." 

"Shall  I  see  you  to  your  house?"  But  as  he  asked 
the  question  he  took  from  his  pocket  a  newspaper,  and 
prepared  to  read  it  during  the  rest  of  his  trip  home. 

"Certainly  not,"  she  said,  smiling.  "For  Heaven's 
sake,  don't  pretend  to  treat  me  as  though  I  were  the 
gentle,  unsophisticated  'home'  contrast.  In  twenty 
minutes  from  now  Miss  Sarah  Sydenham  will  be  sit- 
ting en  negligee,  with  her  dear  little  feet — she  takes 
sevens — on  her  landlady's  unblemished  bureau  cover, 
and" — sinking  her  voice — "she  will  have  just  one 
cigarette  before  she  retires.  There  will  be  no  brandy- 
and-soda — because  she  can't  get  it.  Perhaps  she 
would  if  she  could.  Good-night,  Mr.  Childers.  I  al- 
ways enjoy  a  chat  with  you — as  one  of  the  boys." 

He  saluted  her  with  mock  reverence,  and  spread  out 
his  paper.  Sallie  pushed  her  way  out  of  the  train 
and  walked  rather  solemnly  down  the  stairs  of  the  ele- 
vated railway  station.  A  man,  slightly  the  worse  for 
drink,  spoke  to  her  in  Twenty-third  Street,  noticing 
her  pink  cheeks  and  the  bedraggled  finery  that  she 
wore.  She  laughed  in  his  face,  and,  tapping  him  on 
the  shoulder,  said :  "Go  home."  He  stared  at  her  in 
astonishment,  and  wondered  what  he  had  been  drink- 
ing. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WLDOM,  in  its  feminine  aspect,  offered  an  al- 
luring contour  to  the  uninitiated.  The  cheer- 
less little  office  on  the  seventh  floor,  into 
which  Jack  Childers,  managing  editor,  had 
swept  his  newspaper  chorus,  looked  as  though  it  were 
tenanted  by  a  tealess  tea-party.  The  treasures  of  a 
rapacious  journalism  were  there,  for  it  was  now  gener- 
ally felt  in  Newspaper  Row  that  woman's  soft,  ma- 
ternal instinct — if  it  could  be  obtained — was  a  good 
thing  to  own.  Only  the  cynics  believed  that  the  hard, 
paternal  powers  of  men  were  better  able  to  cope  with 
the  newspaper  nugget,  and  professed  to  see  in  the 
newspaper  lady  a  diluted  imitation  in  corsets  (some- 
times) of  a  newspaper  gentleman.  As  a  chorus,  how- 
ever— a  chorus  that  was  not  called  upon  to  sing  tra- 
la-la — this  little  gathering  of  feminine  owls  appealed 
very  strongly  to  Sallie  Sydenham's  sense  of  humor. 
She  held  herself  aloof  from  the  chorus,  and  the  chorus, 
as  will  be  shown,  resented  that  fact. 

The  prime  and  most  expensive  desk  was  occupied  by 
a  stout,  flaccid  lady  with  pimples,  who  conducted  a 
column  entitled  "How  to  be  beautiful."  She  had 
made  a  study  of  the  question,  impersonally,  of  course, 
and  her  work  was  much  admired.  She  had  special 
recipes  for  the  removal  of  freckles  and  chilblains,  and 
her  advice  in  the  matter  of  pimples  was  looked  upon 
as  second  in  importance  to  none.  The  fact  that  her 
own  face  was  not  unspotted  from  the  world  used  to 
amuse  Miss  Sydenham,  who  wondered  why  the  tal- 
ented lady  failed  to  patronize  her  own  remedies.  It 
never  occurred  to  frivolous  Sallie  that  perhaps  Mrs. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  33 

Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  had  no  time  to  worry 
about  her  own  imperfections.  Her  clients  always  com- 
municated with  her  by  letter.  Had  they  called  to  see 
her,  the  list  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  adherents  might 
have  diminished.  They  looked  upon  her,  through  her 
writings,  as  a  possible  Venus.  She  told  them  how  to 
reduce  their  weight,  and  how  to  cope  with  a  too 
retrousse  nose.  She  was  a  great  authority  on  etiquette, 
and  preached  the  consistent  doctrine  that  a  low-neck 
dress  worn  in  the  morning  was  decidedly  bad  form. 
This,  one  would  think,  was  a  self-evident  fact.  But  it 
was  just  the  kind  of  fact  that  the  journalistic  lady  loved 
to  elaborate  upon,  and  in  candor  it  must  be  said  that 
her  correspondents  liked  to  read  her  luminous  and  un- 
answerable arguments. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  sat  at  her  desk,  blinking  in  the 
morning  sun,  with  a  pile  of  unopened  letters  before 
her.  The  sun  fell  upon  her  disordered  complexion, 
but  did  not  worry  her,  as  it  had  no  questions  to  ask 
and  was  not  embarrassing. 

Very  near  to  Mrs.  Hutchinson — that  is  to  say,  near 
to  her  desk,  and  not  to  her  heart — was  an  elongated 
damsel,  familiarly  known  among  the  feminine  owls  as 
Lamp-Post  LAicy.  Lamp-Post  Lucy  wore  a  very  short 
skirt,  betraying  feet  that  would  (in  the  language  of  the 
office)  have  supported  the  Equitable  Building  or  the 
Brooklyn  Bridge.  She  was  "in  journalism,"  as  she 
never  tired  of  telling,  because  she  loved  a  "literary 
life."  From  earliest  childhood  she  had  written.  At 
the  age  of  six  she  had  composed  a  poem,  entitled  "The 
Apple  Blushed,"  that  had  been  published  in  the  bi- 
weekly journal  of  her  native  town.  She  felt  that  she 
had  a  mission,  though  at  present  it  seemed  to  have  been 
lost  in  the  shuffle.  Her  daily  duty  was  to  give  advice 
to  love-sick  men  and  women.  Sallie  Sydenham  in- 


34  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

sisted  that  as  Lamp-Post  Lucy  had  never  been  kissed — 
for  a  step-ladder  would  have  been  necessary  in  order  to 
reach  her  ruby  lips — it  seemed  absurd  to  make  her  an 
authority  on  affairs  of  the  heart.  But  the  old  argument 
that  it  is  possible  to  criticize  a  plum-pudding,  without 
being  able  to  make  one,  was  Sallie's  answer  when  she 
attempted  to  reason  the  matter  out  with  Jack  Childers. 

Lamp-Post  Lucy  was  quite  spectacular  in  her  moral- 
ity. To  that  large  majority  of  her  feminine  corre- 
spondents craving  to  know  whether  good  usage  al- 
lowed a  girl  to  embrace  a  man  before  she  was  engaged 
to  him,  she  invariably  replied  in  the  negative,  and  added 
that  such  a  course  would  be  heinous.  To  be  sure,  her 
correspondents  seemed  to  live  for  East  Side  dances  and 
promiscuous  "clam-bakes,"  to  which  they  could  never 
go  alone.  But  Lamp-Post  Lucy  was  fervidly  conscien- 
tious, and  her  responsibilities  weighed  upon  her.  She 
had  reduced  her  work,  as  much  as  possible,  to  a  system. 
She  knew  exactly  what  to  say  to  each  brand  of  sufferer, 
as  a  barber  recognizes  in  the 'upturned  chins  of  his  cli- 
ents the  call  for  brushes  soft,  medium,  or  hard.  She 
had  one  parcel  of  stock  advice  for  the  frequent  dam- 
sel who  had  discovered  her  Lothario  to  be  "a  married 
man,"  and  a  father  several  times ;  another  for  the  coy 
young  Sadie  or  Mamie  who  dangled  a  brace  of  Lubins 
from  her  string:  and  yet  a  third  variety  for  the  intro- 
spective maiden  who  wondered  why  she  was  so  cold 
and  unresponsive.  Sallie  declared  that  if,  by  mistake, 
Mrs.  Hutchinson's  complexion  recipes  crept  into 
Lamp-Post  Lucy's  column,  and  Lamp-Post  Lucy's  ad- 
vice should  be  tendered  to  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  constit- 
uents, the  world  would  wag  just  as  amiably. 

The  most  attractive  woman  in  the  office  was  Mrs. 
Hapgood  Hipton,  dubbed  by  the  irreverent  masculine 
owls  Happy  Hippy,  and  greatly  envied.  She  was  the 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  35 

magnet  that  drew  the  men  to  this  cheerless  feminine 
sanctum.  Her  hips  bulged  and  wobbled  as  she  walked ; 
she  was  always  very  highly  perfumed — spiced,  Sallie 
Sydenham  called  it — and  when  she  spoke  (to  the  other 
sex)  she  drew  very  close  to  her  prey  and  whispered 
insidiously.  Nobody  knew  exactly  what  she  did  for 
her  salary.  She  was  always  "writing  a  story  that  was 
going  to  make  a  sensation,"  and  consulting  every  avail- 
able editor  about  it ;  but  it  never  seemed  to  appear,  and 
was  never  even  "set  up."  Happy  Hippy  used  to  sigh 
a  good  deal,  and  wish  that  she  were  married,  arid  re- 
moved from  the  torments  of  journalism.  She  had  se- 
cured a  divorce  from  one  husband,  who  had  been  jeal- 
ous of  her  popularity  with  the  literary  set  (he  was  a 
grocer)  and  had  treated  her  very  badly.  Newspaper 
life  was  killing  her,  she  said,  and  she  simply  couldn't 
endure  it  much  longer,  as  it  was  so  very  hard  on  a 
woman.  Then  she  would  slide  away,  her  hips  wob- 
bling, and  exhaling  patchouli  from  every  pore,  to  see 
if  Mr.  Childers  had  arrived,  and  to  ask  his  advice  about 
her  story.  She  liked  Jack  Childers  immensely,  but  she 
could  not  tolerate  the  horrible  persons  who  sat  in  their 
shirt  sleeves  and  ate  ham  sandwiches.  Jack  Childers 
remembered  that  she  was  a  woman,  and  she  was  not 
inclined  to  let  him  forget  it.  She  amused  the  other 
men,  enveloping  them  in  the  pungency  of  her  essences, 
and  flattering  their  eye  with  the  saliency  of  her  perpet- 
ual hips. 

At  the  back  of  the  room,  in  a  pensive  pose  of  inex- 
orable prettiness,  sat  the  Poet  Laureate  of  the  office, 
one  of  the  most  significant  features  of  Newspaper  Row. 
She  did  not  write  poetry  because  she  was  obliged  to  do 
so,  she  told  everybody  whom  she  could  button-hole. 
Her  husband,  to  whom  she  was  completely  and  un- 
selfishly devoted,  was  in  the  slot-machine  industry,  and 


36  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

in  receipt  of  a  handsome  salary  that  kept  her  as  near 
to  luxury  as  her  somewhat  socialistic  beliefs  permitted 
her  to  go.  Poetry  was  her  interpretation  of  life,  the 
outlet  for  her  strong  psychic  instinct.  It  was  her  "su- 
praliminal  self"  that  was  recognized  in  Newspaper 
Row;  her  "subliminal"  consciousness  asserted  itself 
at  home,  and  it  was  extremely  beautiful. 

Such  material  accessories  as  clothes  naturally  had 
very  little  meaning  to  so  exquisite  and  pellucid  an  en- 
tity as  the  pale  poetess,  and  they  were  what  ordinary 
women  would  call  "badly  made."  A  dusky  line  above 
her  collar  seemed  to  indicate  that  a  little  of  the  pro- 
saic compound  that  the  world  acknowledges  as  soap- 
and-water  would  have  substantially  aided  Anastasia's 
supraliminal  self  in  a  sanitary  way.  Her  soulfulness, 
however,  rendered  the  conventionalities  of  life  unneces- 
sary. Nothing  less  than  soulfulness  can,  as  a  rule, 
effect  this,  and  Anastasia  Atwood  knew  it.  At  home 
she  wore  Grecian  costumes,  and  wound  velvet  bands 
round  her  luxuriant,  dishevelled  tresses.  She  had  a 
passion  for  "receptions,"  at  which  she  recited  her  own 
poems  to  a  weak  lemonade  accompaniment.  Sallie 
had  attended  a  reception,  on  one  occasion,  before  the 
poetess  had  dubbed  her  obnoxious,  and  suggested 
chloroform  as  a  happy  substitute  for  the  weak  lemon- 
ade. She  thought  it  cowardly  of  Mrs.  Atwood  to  lure 
inoffensive  people  to  her  lair  and  then  riddle  them  with 
her  own  home-made  poetry. 

The  desk  next  to  that  occupied  by  Mrs  Atwood  be- 
longed to  Eva  Higgins,  the  famous  feminine  "inter- 
viewer," who  had  been  secured  on  account  of  the  wo- 
man's delicacy  that  she  brought  to  a  mission  usually 
entrusted  to  vain  and  wordy  men.  Miss  Higgins  was 
five-and-forty,  addicted  to  a  kind  of  nervous  wink  that, 
in  her  youth,  would  have  been  provocative,  and  quite 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  37 

disposed  to  look  upon  the  entire  world  as  mere  subjects 
for  her  work.  She  "interviewed"  everybody,  and  it 
was  remarkable  that  all  her  victims  spoke  alike — 
charmingly  and  poetically.  The  beauty  of  her  own 
mind  affected  them,  it  was  supposed.  She  had  "talked" 
with  Spike  Hennessy,  the  safe-breaker,  and  Mr.  Hen- 
nessy's  views  of  life  were  as  sweet  and  unaffected  as 
those  of  Calve,  the  operatic  star.  The  late  Dr.  Tal- 
mage  had  prattled  in  the  same  delectable  vein  as  Anna 
Held,  and  it  was  noted,  on  one  occasion,  when  she  in- 
terviewed Sarah  Bernhardt  and  Bishop  Potter  on  the 
same  day,  that  they  both  said  "Sacrebleu!"  several 
times.  The  Bishop  wrote  to  the  paper,  protesting  that 
he  had  never  uttered  such  a  picturesque  but  suspicious 
expression,  but  the  paper  stood  by  Miss  Higgins,  who 
had  notes  to  show  as  testimony.  She  had  made  her 
greatest  hit  by  means  of  an  interview  with  the  late  Li 
Hung  Chang,  in  which  that  eminent  gentleman  had 
talked  gushingly  of  the  two-step,  and  had  declared 
that  the  figures  of  American  dances — and  women — 
were  the  finest  on  earth.  It  was  popularly  believed 
that  if  Miss  Higgins  were  assigned  to  interview  the 
Eden  Musee,  all  the  wax  figures  would  talk  in  the 
effusive  and  paragraphic  manner  that  had  been  proved 
so  entertaining,  and  that  the  Pope  or  the  King  of 
England  would  not  have  hesitated  to  utilize  that  man-" 
ner.  She  had  a  marvellous  faculty  for  the  inter- 
view. Sallie  Sydenham — uncharitable  Sallie! — de- 
clared that  Eva's  motto  was,  "All  coons  look  alike  to 
me."  But  Miss  Sydenham  was  frivolous,  and  unwor- 
thy of  association  with  so  serious  a  topic. 

Miss  Mamie  Munson,  who  received  a  small  salary 
for  telling  impecunious  womanhood  how  to  look  like 
fashion  plates  on  nothing  a  year,  and  suggesting  the 
best  way  of  converting  cast-off  clothes  into  garments 


38  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

that  would  have  startled  Fifth  Avenue  on  fete-days, 
was  a  handsomely  garbed  young  woman,  inclined  to 
look  upon  journalism  somewhat  apologetically.  Miss 
Munson  was  always  extremely  tired,  but  was  never 
weary  of  explaining  that,  like  Mrs.  Atwood,  she  "didn't 
work  in  a  newspaper  office"  from  necessity.  She  liked 
it,  and  mother  always  said  that  it  was  demoralizing  for 
a  girl  to  idle  away  her  time.  Mother  believed  that  if 
a  young  woman  kept  her  days  fully  occupied,  her 
health  and  happiness  would  be  assured.  Miss  Munson 
was,  possibly,  the  best  dressed  woman  in  the  office. 
Her  clothes  were,  in  fact,  exquisite,  and  she  revelled 
in  them.  She  was  an  ardent  theatre-goer,  and  the 
office  supplied  her  with  dead-head  tickets.  Some  of 
the  other  ladies,  when  life  was  aggressively  stale,  liked 
to  listen  to  her  criticisms  of  plays,  because  they  were 
very  severe — after  the  orthodox  manner  of  "dead- 
head" comment.  Mamie  Munson  said  that  she  could 
have  afforded  to  buy  her  own  seats,  but  mother  thought 
that  it  would  have  been  a  silly  thing  to  do,  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  managers  loved  to  see  well-known  jour- 
nalists at  their  playhouses,  and  that  to  sit  through  their 
productions  was  really  a  form  of  subtle  flattery. 
Sometimes  Miss  Munson  went  into  "society,"  and  the 
next  day  the  feminine  owls  had  a  graphic  description  of 
'  her  dress,  made  from  a  Felix  model,  and  of  her  bou- 
quet, furnished  by  Fleischman  from  a  design. 

Miss  Munson  very  nearly  conflicted  with  Rita  Eisen- 
stein,  the  "society"  writer,  who  signed  her  articles 
"Dolly,"  and  wrote  in  the  first  person  singular,  in  order 
to  convey  the  idea  that  she  was  "in  it."  Miss 
Eisenstein,  who  lived  in  a  charming  house  in  East 
Broadway,  and  bought  her  jaunty,  natty  hats  in  Di- 
vision Street,  was  the  finest  society  writer  in  New  York 
City.  She  had  an  overbearing  style  that  was  most 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  39 

fascinating,  and  when  she  wrote  that  "Mrs.  Vander- 
bilt  told  me  this,"  and  "I  whispered  that  to  the  Duchess 
of  Marlborough,  who  used  to  be  my  little  friend,  Con- 
suelo,"  she  carried  conviction.  She  admitted  the  ultra- 
exclusive  set  only  to  her  column,  and  talked  of  it  as 
Dickie,  and  Jimmie,  and  Billy,  and  Jack.  She  knew 
all  its  foibles,  and  had  a  genius  for  exploiting  them. 
Her  success  was  due  to  the  fact  that  she  appeared  to  be 
personally  present  at  the  swagger  functions  of  which 
she  wrote  in  such  incandescence.  In  summer  her 
accent  was  Newport,  and  in  autumn  she  did  one  coun- 
try house  after  the  other  in  blithe  succession.  She 
brought  the  methods  of  the  giddy  butterfly,  perpetually 
and  frolicsomely  on  the  wing,  to  her  work.  She  said 
that  she  lived  in  East  Broadway  because  it  was  far 
from  the  madding  crowd,  a  fact  that  it  was  impossible 
to  controvert.  But  Sallie  asserted  that  East  Broad- 
way had  a  crowd  of  its  own  that  was  far  maddinger. 

All  these  admirable,  self-supporting  women,  assem- 
bled in  Owldom's  feminine  sanctum,  looked  somewhat 
surly  on  this  particular  morning.  Mrs.  Amelia  Am- 
berg  Hutchinson,  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  Happy  Hippy,  An- 
astasia  Atwood,  Eva  Higgins,  Mamie  Munson,  and 
Rita  Eisenstein  appeared  to  have  something  on  their 
minds.  Men  endure  a  mental  incubus  in  stoic  medita- 
tion; women  do  not  believe  in  passive  endurance  as 
long  as  a  grievance  can  be  aired. 

"To  my  mind,"  said  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchin- 
son, looking  furiously  at  the  letter  of  a  correspondent 
who  wanted  to  know  what  to  do  with  a  birthmark — "to 
my  mind,  Miss  Sydenham's  article  is  an  outrage.  A 
woman  may  know  a  good  deal,  but  she  has  no  right  to 
jocularly  discuss  forbidden  subjects.  Miss  Syden- 
ham's jests  about  the  heroine  in  that  play  are  scandal- 
ous. My  impulse  is  to  resign  from  a  paper  that  pub- 


40  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

lishes  and  apparently  indorses  such  unseemly  levity. 
Positively,  I  blush  when  I  think  of  it.  She  writes 
like  a  man — like  a  conscienceless  libertine.  Surely,  a 
virtuous  woman,  and  it  is  barely  possible,  though  dis- 
tinctly improbable,  that  she  is  a  virtuous  woman — 
should  hesitate  before  she  sells  herself  at  so  much  a 
line." 

"Ah,  dear  Mrs.  Hutchinson,"  chirruped  the  pale 
poetess,  "Miss  Sydenham  writes  so  badly  that  it  really 
doesn't  much  matter  what  she  says.  There  is  no  psy- 
chic quality  to  her  work.  It  is  superficial,  valueless. 
I  did  not  read  the  article  to  which  you  refer.  Harry 
kept  the  paper  from  me.  The  silly  boy !  He  said :  'No, 
Anastasia,  this  is  a  vulgar,  pernicious  affair,  and  you 
shall  not  sully  your  beautiful  thoughts  with  it.'  He 
takes  such  good  care  of  me,  worried  as  he  is  with  all 
the  business  of  the  slot-machines.  Ah,  my  dear  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  those  machines,  prosaic  though  they  be, 
are  a  terrible  anxiety.  But  his  salary  is  enormous,  and 
I  tell  him  to  dwell  upon  that  only.  May  I" — very  tim- 
idly— "may  I  read  Miss  Sydenham's  article?  Do  you 
— do  you — think  that  it  will  hurt  me  ?" 

Lamp-Post  Lucy,  who  was  striding  up  and  down  the 
room  in  her  yacht-like  boots,  handed  a  paper  to  the 
poetess,  and  Mrs.  Atwood  glanced  furtively,  reluc- 
tantly, and  fearfully  at  it. 

"Sallie  Sydenham  makes  the  office  impossible  for  all 
of  us,"  said  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  viciously.  "How  can  I 
give  plausible  advice  to  my  correspondents,  with  this 
horrible  thing  on  the  next  page?  Why  can't  women 
deal  with  feminine  subjects,  instead  of  trying  to  out- 
man  man  ?  Miss  Sydenham  must  have  written  this  in 
a  taphouse.  How  a  gentleman  like  Jack  Childers  can 
be  seen  with  her — even  crossing  City  Hall  Park  at  the 
dead  of  night — is  something  that  I  can't  understand — " 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  -41 

"Was  he  seen  with  her  ?"  cried  Happy  Hippy,  press- 
ing her  pneumatic  hips,  to  see  if  they  were  still  resil- 
ient. "You  don't  say  so ?  When?  By  whom?" 

"Oh,  that's  an  old  story,"  retorted  Lamp-Post  Lucy, 
bitterly.  "They  ride  uptown  together  every  night,  if 
you  please.  And  the  office  boy  told  me  that  he  had 
heard  Mr.  Childers  nearly  splitting  his  sides  with 
laughter  at  Miss  Sydenham's  article.  Isn't  it  perfectly 
fiendish?" 

Happy  Hippy  rose  with  a  sublime  look  of  injured 
innocence  struggling  through  the  rice-powder  on  her 
face.  "I  have  an  appointment  with  Mr.  Childers  about 
my  story,"  she  said,  looking  at  her  watch,  "and  I  think 
I  shall  just  let  him  perceive  that  the  women  in  this 
newspaper  office  have  a  few  opinions  of  their  own. 
When  I  read  that  article  this  morning  I  put  my  break- 
fast aside,  unable  to  eat.  It  was  so  coarse,  so  indeli- 
cate— I  am  referring  to  the  article.  If  it  had  been 
signed  'Tommy  the  Tough,'  nobody  would  have  com- 
plained ;  but  for  a  woman  to  boldly  put  her  signature 
to  such  a  wicked  apology  for  immorality — " 

"We  all  know  it,"  declared  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  sitting 
down  and  crossing  her  legs.  "Not  for  the  largest  for- 
tune would  I  put  my  name  to  an  unfeminine  word.  I 
don't  believe  in  it.  To  be  brilliant  it  is  not  necessary 
to  be  indecent.  And  though  men  laugh  at  Sallie  Syd- 
enham,  they  despise  her  in  their  heart  of  hearts.  Men 
like  a  womanly  woman,"  she  added,  flapping  her  huge 
feet  until  they  looked  like  propellers  that  didn't  propel. 

At  that  moment  a  wail  was  heard  from  the  end  of 
the  room,  and  Anastasia  Atwood  fell  back  limply  in  her 
chair — for  a  moment  only.  She  was  herself  again  at 
the  end  of  that  moment.  She  sat  there,  waving  a  fan 
and  apparently  making  a  supreme  effort  to  speak.  And 
she  spake. 


42  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"Iniquity!"  she  cried.  "Sheer  iniquity!  A  pen  in 
the  hand  of  Messalina  would  produce  just  such  an 
odious  tirade.  I  wish  I  could  say  that  I  didn't  under- 
stand it,  but  I'm  married — and  I  do.  I  am  no  shud- 
dering vestal" — with  a  sardonic  look  at  Lamp-Post 
Lucy,  who  assuredly  was,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  non-shud- 
dering one — "but  if  I  tried  I  could  not  give  utterance 
to  such  indescribable  testimony  to  the  possession  of  a 
scoffing,  tainted,  worldly-wise  mind.  Harry  was  right. 
I  should  never  have  read  this.  I  cannot  write^my  poem 
on  'The  Warmth  of  the  Cold  Snow'  to-day.  'My  mind 
has  been  ruthlessly  disturbed." 

"In  my  set,"  said  Rita  Eisenstein,  quickly,  to  efface 
Anastasia  Atwood,  whom  she  hated,  "in  my  set  there 
is,  of  course,  a  tendency  to — er — looseness  of  expres- 
sion and  to  a  certain  kind  of  picturesque  coarseness.  I 
heard  Mrs.  Jack  Boothby  say  'Hell!'  the  other  night, 
when  Jim  Van  Oilish  trod  on  her  train  and  tore  it  to 
shreds.  (By  the  bye,  I  promised  her  not  to  write  this, 
and^sha'n't.)  But  Sallie  Sydenham  goes  too  far.  .  .  . 
I'm  not  a  prude — though  at  Hillsdale,  Long  Island, 
last  autumn,  Joe  Van  Rensselaer  said  that  I  was,  be- 
cause I  locked  my  door  at  night.  No,  I'm  not  a  prude, 
but  I  think  that  every  woman  should  at  least  write  from 
a  clean  mind,  for  her  own  sake  as  well  as  for  that  of 
other  people.  If  Miss  Sydenham  were  compelled  to  be 
refined — as  we  are — my  opinion  is  that  she  couldn't 
write  a  line.  Her  lack  of  refinement  is  her  stock- 
in-trade." 

"Undoubtedly,"  agreed  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutch- 
inson,  in  her  agitation  advising  the  lady  with  the  birth- 
mark to  use  a  hair  restorer.  "Miss  Eisenstein  is  right." 
"Miss  Eisenstein,  going  each  day  from  Fifth  Ave- 
nue to  East  Broadway,  can  be  relied  upon  for  healthy 
opinions.  She  combines  .the  thought  of  the  fashion- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  43 

able  world  with  that  of  the  slums,"  remarked  the  poet- 
ess, with  an  emphasis  that  was  delightful  in  its  un- 
restrained malice.  If  Miss  Eisenstein  hated  Mrs.  At- 
wood,  the  poetess  returned  the  sentiment  with  com- 
pound interest. 

"That  is  an  unkind  dig,"  declared  Mamie  Munson, 
who  loved  to  see  the  literary  wage-earners  bickering, 
and  who,  from  the  vantage  point  of  her  sheltered  desk, 
enjoyed  many  a  verbal  can-can  and  a  vituperative  fling. 
"Mother  has  made  me  promise  never  to  read  anything 
that  Sallie  Sydenham  writes.  She  says  that  it  would 
be  Greek  to  me,  anyway.  I  think  I  should  understand 
it,  though" — with  a  simper — "don't  you?" 

"I  do,  indeed,  dear,"  responded  Lamp-Post  Lucy. 
"You  may  know  nothing  of  Greek — and  sometimes, 
love,  your  English  seems  a  trifle  misty — but — oh,  yes, 
you'd  understand  Sallie." 

Miss  Munson  grew  red  in  the  face  and  lost  her  tem- 
per with  wonderful  rapidity.  There  were  moments 
when  she  hated  the  office  into  which  she  had  been 
forced  by  the  inevitable  "uncontrollable  circumstances" 
— and  this  was  one  of  the  moments — but  she  loved  the 
pose  of  juvenility  and  innocence.  It  was  the  only  lux- 
ury obtainable,  and  she  was  not  going  to  permit  its 
molestation  with  a  good  grace. 

"You're  jealous,"  she  cried  noisily;  "jealous — I  say 
jealous !  You're  all  so  mad  you  don't  know  what  to 
do  because  Miss  Sydenham  makes  more  money  than 
you  do,  and  doesn't  have  to  write  about  warts,  and  hair- 
restorers,  and  etiquette;  or  isn't  obliged  to  grind  out 
doggerel  verses.  You  are  all  furious  because  she's 
the  most  talked-about  woman  in  the  office."  And  the 
irate  Miss  Munson  muttered  "Spiteful  cats!"  in  a 
sotto-voce  that  was  not  as  sotto  as  it  might  have  been. 

"Silence  1"  commanded.  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutch- 


44  A  G*rl  Who  Wrote 

inson,  majestically.  "Silence.  I  will  not  permit  such 
language  in  the  office,  Miss  Munson.  I  shall  appeal 
to  Mr.  Childers.  You  and  your  desk  are  here  on  suf- 
ferance only.  Try  and  conduct  yourself  in  a  seemly 
manner,  if  you  wish  to  remain.  And  your  mother,  if 
she  takes  as  much  interest  in  your  welfare  as  you  wish 
us  to  believe,  should  keep  you  at  home,  especially  as 
you  are  not  obliged  to  indulge  in  these  labors.  Per- 
sonally, I  confess  that  I  need  my  salary — I  am  not 
ashamed  to  confess  it — or  nothing  would  induce  me  to 
appear  daily  in  an  office  where  ribaldry  is  accepted 
and  flaringly  published." 

Miss  Munson  said  nothing.  Her  readily  inflam- 
mable fuse  had  burned  itself  out.  She  felt  a  trifle 
sorry  that  she  had  gone  on  record  as  a  semi-defender 
of  the  detestable  Sallie  Sydenham.  She  had  ascribed 
her  own  pardonable  sentiments  to  the  other  ladies.  It 
was  a  pity. 

Happy  Hippy  wobbled  from  the  room,  leaving  a  trail 
of  stagnant  perfume  behind  her.  She  was  rather  tired 
of  these  magpies,  and  infinitely  preferred  the  masculine 
regions  of  the  office.  She  was  fond  of  remarking  that 
she  could  always  "get  along"  with  men,  but  could 
scarcely  cope  with  the  pettiness  of  her  own  sex. 

"As  for  my  doggerel  verses,"  said  the  pale  poetess 
with  biting  emphasis,  "they  may  be  weak" — they  were 
in  the  last  stages  of  anaemia — "but  they  bring  me  let- 
ters from  all  over  the  world.  Not  for  a  million  a  year 
would  I  waste  myself  on  dramatic  criticism.  I  did  it 
once,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Childers.  It  was  enough. 
.  .  .  Never  again." 

Mrs.  Atwood  had,  indeed,  tried  theatrical  criticism 
before  Sallie's  advent,  but  her  soulfulness  had  stood 
in  her  way.  She  had  criticized  musical  comedy  .from 
the  "Hamlet"  point  of  view,  and  had  discussed  Palais 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  45 

Royal  farce  from  the  platform  of  the  old  comedies. 
"San  Toy"  had  failed  because  it  was  so  trivial  com- 
pared with  "Coriolanus,"  and  "The  Gay  Parisians" 
was  voted  a  detestable  frivolity  for  the  reason  that  it 
"fell  down"  beside  "The  School  for  Scandal."  She 
had  preached  morality  when  nobody  wanted  it,  and  had 
inveighed  against  immorality  when  to  discover  it  a 
powerful  microscope  would  have  been  necessary. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Atwood,"  bleated  Rita  Eisenstein,  "your 
criticisms  were  lovely,  and  even  though  you  never 
write  another,  they  will  live.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
way  in  which  you  proved  that  the  leading  characters 
in  Tlorodora'  were  utterly  ridiculous  compared  with 
those  in — I  think  it  was  'The  Merchant  of  Venice.'  It 
was  so  unanswerable." 

"Thank  goodness  I  never  imperilled  my  immortal 
soul  by  discussing  sexual  matters  in  the  language  of  a 
scavenger!"  retorted  the  poetess,  who,  like  Bunthorne, 
was  very  terrible  when  thwarted.  "If  one's  record  be 
soiled—" 

"Gargle  with  a  weak  solution  of  peroxide  of  hydro- 
gen," wrote  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  mur- 
muring the  words  almost  cooingly. 

"And  tell  him  that  to  win  you  he  must  renounce  to- 
bacco," scribbled  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  with  soft  insistence. 

Rita  Eisenstein  and  Mamie  Munson  laughed  loudly, 
and  a  Kilkenny  conflict  seemed  likely  to  re-establish 
itself  in  this  cosy,  secluded  little  sanctum,  when  the 
possibilities  were  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  Atkin- 
son Smith,  the  business  manager.  Mr.  Smith  was  fol- 
lowed by  Happy  Hippy,  who  had  met  him  on  his  way 
up,  and  who  sweetly  and  clingingly  held  his  arm,  so 
that  escape  was  cut  off.  Atkinson  Smith  was  a  hand- 
some man,  with  a  jovial  disposition.  He  was  ex- 
tremely fond  of  the  weaker  sex,  and  though  he  looked 


46  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

upon  feminine  journalists  as  parodies,  and  was  wont 
to  remark  at  his  club  that  to  see  the  fair  ones  travestied 
was  at  times  discouraging,  still  he  would  occasionally 
forsake  his  trousered  associates  and  wander  to  the  sanc- 
tum where  petticoats  prevailed.  Any  petticoats  were 
better  than  none  at  all. 

The  demeanor  of  the  ladies  changed  with  his  en- 
trance. The  features  of  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutch- 
inson  settled  themselves  into  her  favorite  "happy-wife- 
and-mother"  expression,  and  the  milk  of  human  kind- 
ness seemed  to  ooze  from  her  lips.  The  thick  encrusta- 
tion of  malice  that  disfigured  the  symmetry  of  Anas- 
tasia's  face  was  replaced  by  a  sort  of  rapt  mysticism 
that  was  extremely  pleasing.  Lamp-Post  Lucy  made 
an  effort  to  hide  her  boots,  and  adopted  the  pose  of  a 
goddess  surprised  at  her  bath.  Mamie  Munson  cast 
down  her  eyes  in  the  manner  of  an  ingenue  suddenly 
confronted  with  the  male  marvels  of  mundane  revela- 
tion, but  found  time  to  send  a  happy  smile  in  Mr. 
Smith's  direction.  Rita  Eisenstein  "sat  high"  at  her 
desk,  in  extremely  "good  form,"  and  bent  her  head 
gracefully  in  acknowledgment  of  a  salute  that  Mr. 
Smith  did  not  make.  Eva  Higgins  had  launched  her- 
self into  an  "interview"  with  Mrs.  Carrie  Nation,  whose 
views  on  Maeterlinck,  and  the  drama  of  symbolism,  she 
was  allowing  the  popular  temperance  lady  to  prattle 
about  skittishly.  Miss  Higgins  was,  therefore,  dead  to 
the  world.  It  was  her  chronic  condition. 

"Good-morning,  ladies,"  said  the  business  manager, 
cheerfully,  with  a  rotund  and  thick-lipped  geniality. 
"I'm  sorry  to  interrupt  your  labors."  He  smiled  at 
some  passing  thought,  for  he  knew  those  labors  of  old. 
Then  he  resumed :  "This  paper  intends  to  celebrate  its 
anniversary  next  week  by  a  reception  held  from  ten 
o'clock  until  midnight.  We  have  invited  many  nota- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  47 

bilities,  and  the  occasion  will — er — be  an  interesting 
one.  I  want  you  all  to  be  present,  if  possible.  There 
will  be  a  cold  collation." 

He  knew  that  feminine  journalists  were  at  one  with 
their  brethren  in  the  matter  of  collation — cold,  warm, 
or  tepid.  At  the  mention  of  "cold  collation"  Mrs. 
Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  swallowed  invisible  food, 
and  Anastasia  Atwood  emitted  a  sound  that,  if  she  had 
been  an  ordinary,  unpoetic,  every-day  mortal,  would 
have  seemed  very  much  like  "smacking"  her  lips. 

"We  should  like  the  entire  staff  to  be  represented," 
he  went  on,  "and  I  hope  you  will  all  find  it  convenient 
to  appear.  If  any  of  you  see  Miss  Sydenham  I  wish 
you  would  kindly  tell  her  of  this." 

The  ladies  pursed  their  lips  and  shot  glances  at  each 
other.  Even  the  subject  of  the  cold  collation  was  tem- 
porarily forgotten.  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson 
was  the  first  to  recover  her  equanimity. 

"If  there  is  going  to  be  plenty  of  champagne,  Mr. 
Smith,"  she  said  playfully,  with  hippopotamic  airiness, 
"I  think  you  may  rely  upon  Miss  Sallie  Sydenham's 
presence." 

"No,  Amelia,"  quoth  the  poetess,  emphatically;  "it 
will  be  a  very  tame  affair  for  Miss  Sydenham.  Sheer 
respectability,  you  know,  will  frighten  her.  I'm  afraid, 
Mr.  Smith,"  turning  to  the  business  manager,  "that 
Miss  Sydenham  will  never  appear." 

"Oh,  she'll  come  right  enough,"-  interposed  Lamp- 
Post  Lucy.  "There'll  be  a  few  actors  on  hand,  I'm 
sure,  and  she  can  tell  them  funny  stories.  Sallie  won't 
desert  us." 

"Did  you — did  you — read  her  article  on  the  new 
play,  Mr.  Smith  ?"  asked  Mamie  Munson,  coquettishly, 
but  in  tones  so  low  that  they  were  scarcely  audible. 

The  ladies  cast  down  their  eyes  in  apparent  dismay. 


48  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  averted  her  flaccid 
face  and  stared  at  the  wall.  The  pale  poetess  looked 
at  the  ceiling,  as  though  she  wanted  to  get  up  as  high 
as  possible.  Happy  Hippy  gasped,  and  cast  imploring 
glances  at  Atkinson  Smith,  as  though  to  say,  "Don't — 
don't  admit  it."  Lamp-Post  Lucy  planted  her  feet 
firmly  on  the  floor,  with  her  limbs  in  two  counties. 
Rita  Eisenstein  rose,  walked  to  the  window,  and  played 
an  air  upon  the  pane. 

The  business  manager  was  vastly  amused  and  en- 
joyed it  all  hugely. 

"Certainly  I  read  her  article,"  he  answered.  "I  al- 
ways read  them — wouldn't  miss  them  for  worlds. 
They're  the  best  thing  in  the  paper — cut  rather  low  at 
the  neck,  of  course,  but  none  the  worse  for  that..  Sal- 
lie  is  a  caution — so  unconventional,  isn't  she?" 

"Mr.  Smith,"  said  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson 
in  a  funereal  voice,  "would  you  let  your  dear  little  boys 
and  girls  read  Sallie  Sydenham's  articles  ?" 

"Before  I  can  answer  that  question,  my  dear  lady," 
replied  the  business  manager,  with  a  smile,  "I  feel  that 
it  would  be  necessary,  and  respectable,  to  marry.  I'm 
not  married."  Happy  Hippy,  who  speculated  upon  his 
celibacy,  gave  him  a  winning  look.  "But  Sallie  doesn't 
write  for  children,"  he  added. 

"No,"  sighed  the  pale  poetess,  sorrowfully.  "To 
the  babes  and  sucklings  she  carries  no  appeal.  Ah, 
me!" 

"Perhaps  I  had  better  send  a  line  to  her  house,"  said 
Atkinson  Smith,  thoughtfully,  feeling  that  sufficient  for 
the  day  was  the  journalistic  petticoat  thereof,  and 
turning  to  go.  "Don't  forget  to  come,  any  of  you. 
You  won't  be  shocked,  I  can  promise.  Good-morning." 

Their  original  expressions  returned  to  the  faces  of 
the  perturbed  ladies  as  soon  as  Atkinson  Smith  had 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  49 

gone.  These  expressions  were  now  heightened  by  dis- 
comfiture. It  would  have  been  very  easy  -to  announce 
a  supply  of  well-conceived  contempt  for  this  business 
manager,  who  apparently  held  feminine  propriety  so 
lightly.  But  it  would  have  been  useless.  After  all,  he 
was,  by  his  own  confession,  unmarried.  Perhaps  he 
was  a  rake.  To  a  rake  Miss  Sydenham  would  un- 
doubtedly make  a  fervent  appeal.  This  idea  spread 
with  telepathic  contagion  among  the  ladies.  They 
worked  on  silently  for  a  half  hour.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  arose,  and  in  a 
voice  that  trembled  slightly  she  spoke  as  follows : 

"The  only  thing  to  do,  in  order  to  rectify  the  licen- 
tious spirit  of  this  office,  is  to  cut  Miss  Sydenham 
openly.  As  we  are  to  appear  at  this  reception,  and  she 
is  also  to  be  there,  the  occasion  seems  to  me  to  be  an 
inspired  one.  Ladies,  let  us  show,  by  a  discreet  for- 
bearance and  a  seemly  self-repression,  that  Miss 
Sydenham  is  not — er — is — not — er — in  our  class." 

The  pale  poetess  murmured  a  chaste  "Amen ;"  Hap- 
py Hippy  nodded  approvingly;  Miss  Munson  threw 
up  her  eyes  to  the  white-washed  ceiling,  and  seemed 
to  register  a  vow;  Lamp-Post  Lucy  tapped  her  boots 
assentingly  on  the  floor;  Eva  Higgins  paused  in  her 
manipulation  of  Mrs.  Carrie  Nation's  sweet  and  fra- 
grant mind  to  show  that  she  was  acquiescent,  and  Miss 
Eisenstein  shook  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson's 
moist  red  hand  and  beamed  upon  that  benevolent  ma- 
tron. 

By  which  it  will  be  seen  that  the  way  of  the  trans- 
gressor is  hard,  and  all  the  harder  when  the  way  is 
macadamized  by  the  feminine  process.  The  virtue  that 
hath  its  own  reward  was  thereafter  luminous  in  the 
feminine  sanctum  on  the  seventh  floor. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HARLIE  COVINGTON  was  one  of  the  for- 
tunate many  who  are  not  tortured  by  the  too 
strenuous  idea.  He  was  known  to  his 
friends  as  a  "charming  fellow,"  which  meant 
that  he  was  socially  colorless  and  pleasantly  non-ag- 
gressive. He  was  on  the  outside  edge  of  journalism, 
and  was  consequently  popular  in  Newspaper  Row,  be- 
cause he  conflicted  with  nobody.  Mr.  Covington 
wrote  agreeable  reviews  of  disagreeable  books,  and  en- 
couraged the  budding  author  to  bud.  It  was  not  a 
very  exhilarating  pastime,  but  Mr.  Covington  was  sat- 
isfied, because  it  was  undoubtedly  quite  respectable. 
He  collected  autograph  copies  of  valueless  publica- 
tions, and  was  looked  upon  with  delight  by  the  authors 
thereof,  who  loved  to  present  "works"  that  few  seemed 
inclined  to  purchase. 

Mr.  Covington's  supreme  ambition  was  to  be  looked 
upon  as  "a  man  about  town."  His  desires  went  no 
further.  He  belonged  to  a  club  or  two,  and  was  care- 
ful to  be  on  view  in  the  windows  thereof  once  or  twice 
a  week.  He  lived  in  a  bachelor  apartment,  with  a 
housekeeper.  At  six  o'clock  regularly  he  donned  his 
evening  clothes,  and  ate  his  solitary  chop  in  well- 
groomed  state.  Of  late  his  post-prandial  entertain- 
ment had  consisted  in  escorting  Miss  Sallie  Sydenham 
to  the  playhouse. 

He  was  sincerely  interested  in  the  girl.  It  was 
through  his  "outside"  influence  that  she  had  obtained 
a  footing  in  Owldom.  He  had  first  met  her  while  she 
was  trying  to  eke  out  a  living  by  teaching  the  young 
idea — an  occupation  that  she  thoroughly  loathed.  Her 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  51 

candor  and  ingenuousness  had  appealed  to  him, 
and  he  had  set  out  to  better  her  condition,  with  mo- 
tives so  pure  and  selfish  that  they  had  laid  themselves 
open  to  uncharitable  criticism.  He  had  watched  her 
rapid,  mushroom  progress,  and  deplored  the  means 
she  used  to  accomplish  it.  He  was  genuinely  attached 
to  her.  It  flattered  his  vanity — "man  about  town" 
that  he  was — to  be  seen  at  "opening  nights"  with  a 
girl  so  universally  talked  about  as  Sallie.  He  liked 
to  hear  the  crowd  murmur  as  they  entered  the  play- 
house— she,  in  her  ostentatious  mock-finery,  he  in  the 
very  severity  of  rigid,  uncompromising  evening  garb. 
Mr.  Covington  was  amused  at  the  frequent  charges 
that  he  wrote  Miss  Sydenham's  criticisms.  As  a 
sense  of  humor  was  entirely  foreign  to  him,  and  a 
frivolity  of  style  distinctly  antipodal  to  his  nature,  he 
might  have  been  even  more  legitimately  amused  than 
he  was. 

This  young  man  had  lovable  qualities,  and  his  short- 
comings were  merely  superficial.  His  sincerity  shone 
from  his  face.  He  avoided  the  petty  jealousies,  the 
stinging  disappointments,  the  deadening  of  the  finer 
nature's  susceptibilities,  and  the  ostracising  necessi- 
ties of  newspaper  life.  He  knew  that  they  existed, 
but  did  not  care  to  take  chances.  His  life  was  simple 
and  uninspiring.  What  the  world  thought — that  was 
everything  to  him.  It  was  a  species  of  altruistic 
selfishness,  if  there  be  such  a  paradoxical  combination. 
He  estimated  his  own  value  by  the  fictitious  tag  that 
Mrs.  Grundy  stitched  to  him. 

Mr.  Covington  entered  his  club  one  morning  in 
feverish  haste.  It  was  his  custom  to  read  the  morning 
papers  there,  as  it  gave  him  the  leisurely  pose  of  a 
flaneur.  He  usually  sat  in  a  leather  chair  by  a  large 
window,  and  ambled  through  his  task.  Passers-by 


52  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

nodded  to  him  occasionally,  which  pleased  him,  and 
the  "Hallo,  Charlie!"  that  greeted  him  at  times  was 
music  to  him.  Such  easy,  unstudied  popularity  was 
delightful. 

On  this  occasion  Charlie  appeared  to  be  ill  at  ease. 
He  took  up  the  paper  for  which  Miss  Sydenham  wrote, 
but  did  not  open  it.  He  had  a  presentiment  of  un- 
pleasantness. He  had  accompanied  Sallie  the  night 
before  to  a  music-hall,  and  the  memory  of  the  enter- 
tainment was  particularly  galling.  The  feature  of  the 
programme  had  been  a  duel,  fought  by  two  arch 
young  women.  The  conventionalities  had  been  blithe- 
ly disregarded.  After  disrobing  for  the  contest,  the 
girls  had  -horrified  the  audience  by  appearing  stripped 
to  the  waist,  without  the  traditional  fleshings.  New 
York  likes  its  forbidden  fruit  well  hidden,  and  the  ex- 
hibition had  been  received  with  righteous  howls  of 
disgust.  Ladies  had  risen  and  departed,  men  had 
hissed,  and  there  had  been  a  sort  of  pandemonium. 

Charlie  Covington,  as  he  sat  with  the  still  unopened 
paper  in  his  hand,  tried  to  recall  his  own  sensations. 
He  thought — he  hoped — that  he  had  felt  embarrassed, 
for  Sallie's  sake  rather  than  for  his  own ;  but  he  could 
not  be  quite  sure  of  it.  Miss  Sydenham  had  laughed 
apathetically  at  the  crass  stupidity  of  the  "feature," 
and  had  declined  to  move  from  her  box.  She  had  rea- 
soned, with  some  apparent  logic,  that  a  newspaper 
writer  was  valueless  if  carried  away  too  completely  by 
personal  sentiments.  It  might  be  "good  journalism" 
to  profess  these  sentiments,  but  to  experience  them 
veritably  was  the  very  height  of  weakness. 

"I  am  here,"  she  had  said,  "to  tell  the  public  what  I 
see,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  allow  my  own 
sweet  personal  modesty  to  do  my  readers  out  of  their 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  53 

daily  dose.  They  are  not  responsible  for  the  sad  fact 
that  I  am  a  perfect  lady." 

Sallie  had  sat  there  and  had  seemed  to  enjoy  watch- 
ing the  expressions  on  the  faces  of  the  men  and  wo- 
men, and — Mr.  Covington  certainly  remembered  it — 
he  had  failed  to  argue  the  matter  with  her.  He  had 
stayed,  as  though  convinced,  and  he  had  laughed.  He 
recalled  his  laughter — a  light,  mirthless  laughter.  This 
was  the  truth;  there  was  no  doubt  about  it.  Yet 
Sallie  was  a  girl,  and  a  pretty  girl ;  and  he  was  a  man 
at  the  apogee  of  his  virility.  What  was  there  in  the 
mystic  exigencies  of  journalism  that  had  dulled  those 
facts  for  him  last  night?  Charlie  Covington  always 
prided  himself  upon  his  chivalry,  and  surely  a  man 
could  not  write  himself  away  from  that. 

He  sighed,  and  the  paper  rustled  in  his  hand.  If 
Sallie  had  taken  a  correct  and  serious  view  of  an  ex- 
tremely degrading  exhibition,  he  would  have  no  cause 
for  self-reproach.  He  could  even  justify  his  course 
in  allowing  her  to  remain. 

As  he  read  the  article  his  face  fell.  A  dull,  brick- 
red  glow  spread  along  his  forehead,  and  he  bit  his  mus- 
tache with  febrile  zest.  Miss  Sydenham  had  "guyed" 
the  entire  thing,  and  had  hurled  at  it  the  shafts  of  a 
misdirected  ridicule.  Hundreds  of  people  might  read 
this,  and  laugh.  To  Charlie  Covington  it  was  hor- 
rible. Miss  Sydenham  had  religiously  closed  her  eyes 
to  the  impropriety  of  the  undressed  duel.  "There 
was  no  excuse  for  it,"  she  wrote,  "inasmuch  as  both 
ladies  were  so  exceedingly  ill-formed  that  the  artistic 
sense  was  shocked.  The  challenging  girl  looked  so 
much  like  a  Hottentot  that  we  simply  screamed  for 
corsets.  The  other  resembled  a  jelly  that  had  not 
'jelled,'  and  the  public  felt  sorry  for  her.  Action  on 


54  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

the  part  of  the  authorities  will  be  unnecessary.  Who 
would  care  to  interfere  with  a  Hottentot  or  a  jelly?" 

Charlie  Covington  let  the  paper  fall,  sincerely 
grieved.  His  eyes  looked  through  the  club  window, 
but  saw  nothing.  For  the  first  time  the  cries  of  "Hal- 
lo, Charlie !"  were  unheard  by  him.  Miss  Sydenham's 
article  would  cause  discussion,  but  of  the  wrong  sort, 
and  her  motives  would  be  impugned — certainly  with 
justice.  If  she  had  only  taken  a  woman's  view  of  the 
show — just  for  once!  If  she  had  but  allowed  an  in- 
jured femininity  to  shine  through  her  article!  In 
every  paper  that  day  this  nauseating  duel  had  probably 
been  ferociously  "roasted,"  and  Sallie  Sydenham  had 
laughed  at  it  as  no  man  would  have  dared  to  laugh. 
They  would  all  say  that  she  was  lacking  in  the  moral 
sense,  and  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  other  hateful  things.  If 
she  had  written  as  she  surely  must  have  felt,  all  would 
have  been  well.  The  comments  of  a  girl,  or  a  wife, 
or  a  mother,  would  ha.ve  been  valuable.  She  might 
have  attacked  the  thing  from  each  or  all  of  these 
points.  Sallie  had  lost  a  valuable  opportunity,  and 
had  deliberately  sacrificed  morality  to  a  perverse  flip- 
pancy. It  was  maddening. 

He  told  himself  that  it  was  all  his  fault;  that  the 
disgrace  lay  at  his  door  as  surely  as  it  did  at  hers. 
The  whole  episode  was  simply  disgusting.  He  rose 
and  walked  up  and  down,  raging  against  journalism. 
Sallie  needed  a  moral  support.  A  woman  might  think 
that  she  could  wade  through  the  improprieties,  man- 
like and  alone,  to  emerge  unsullied.  But  he  did  not 
think  that  it  was  possible.  "He  that  touches  pitch 
shall  be  defiled  therewith,"  he  remembered;  and  how 
much  more  she?  It  was  awful  to  think  of  this  young 
woman  wasting  her  God-given  wit  in  cesspools.  And 
yet  ...  and  yet  ...  he  thought  of  Amelia  Am- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  55 

berg  Hutchinson,  Anastasia  Atwood,  Lamp-Post  Lucy, 
and  the  other  untrousered  specimens  of  Owldom.  They 
were  journalism's  substitute  for  so-called  "womanly 
women,"  but  how  distasteful  and  repulsive!  Was 
there  no  medium  between  their  canting  stupidity  and 
Sallie's  revolutionary  recklessness? 

She  knew  no  women,  and — if  he  believed  what  she 
said — had  no  desire  to  do  so.  Women  were  either 
jealous  of  her  vogue,  or  opposed  to  her  ruthless  frank- 
ness. Sallie  could  neither  interest  women  nor  feel  in- 
terested in  them.  She  had  no  ideas  on  the  servant-girl 
question  but  humorous  ones.  Her  convictions  on  the 
subject  of  stewing  prunes  or  preserving  tomatoes  were 
positively  sinful.  She  hated  to  be  asked  her 
opinions  on  current  literature,  the  emptiness  of 
which  she  despised.  She  laughed  at  the  high-falutin 
gibberish  of  Marie  Corelli,  and  the  fervid  mock-hero- 
ics of  Hall  Caine.  Poetry  she  could  not  understand, 
except  that  of  Anastasia  Atwood,  which  appealed  to 
her  distressing  sense  of  the  ludicrous. 

Charlie  Covington  realized,  perhaps  for  the  first 
time,  that  Sallie  was  quite  impossible.  Some  influ- 
ence, however,  must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  her.  If 
she  could  only  be  induced  to  form  some  girl  friend- 
ship, what  an  inestimable  boon  it  would  be  for  her. 
This  constant  association  with  the  other  sex,  this  noc- 
turnal haunting  of  the  newspaper  office,  this  perpetual 
quest  for  a  humorous  outlook,  were  demoralizing.  He 
fancied  that  Miss  Sydenham  was  more  alive  to  the 
good  opinion  of  Jack  Childers  than  to  that  of  anybody 
else. 

He  was  very  fond  of  Jack  Childers,  whose  amiable, 
unspoiled  nature  he  admired.  Childers  must  surely 
see  that  this  girl  was  ruining  herself.  He.  must  cer- 
tainly realize  that  she  was  jeopardizing  her  reputation 


56  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

even  for  newspaper  purposes.  He  would  see  Jack 
Childers  at  once.  The  idea  came  to  him  as  though  in 
swift  inspiration.  He  would  consult  the  managing 
editor  immediately.  There  was  no  time  to  be  lost.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  though  the  Tenderloination  of  this 
girl  were  achieving  itself  suddenly.  The  process  must 
be  arrested  before  it  was  too  late.  Charlie  Covington 
was  not  addicted  to  an  intensity  of  energy,  but  five 
minutes  after  he  had  decided  to  see  Mr.  Childers  he 
was  on  his  way  downtown. 

The  soles  of  Mr.  Childers'  patent  leather  boots  were 
in  unsullied  evidence,  elevated  gracefully  upon  an  ad- 
joining desk,  as  Charlie  Covington  was  admitted  to  the 
tiny  office  in  which  Sallie  Sydenham  was  wont  to  seek 
nocturnal  nepenthe  after  her  day's  work.  Mr.  Childers 
was  meditating,  and  the  thoughtful  American,  when  he 
meditates,  uplifts  his  feet.  In  other  countries  the  ordi- 
nary cerebrating  male  rivets  his  eyes  upon  the  ceiling; 
in  America,  it  is  always  the  feet  that  clamor  for  the 
skyward  pose.  The  managing  editor  came  back  to 
earth  as  his  visitor  entered,  and  gave  to  Mr.  Covington 
the  cordial  greeting  of  the  outside  world  instead  of 
the  uncompromising  grunt  that  is  characteristic  of 
Owldom. 

"This  is  kind  of  you,  Charlie,  old  man,"  he  said  in  the 
soothing,  amiable  voice  that  to  his  reporters  was  pleas- 
antest  music.  "You  don't  favor  me  very  often,  I'm 
sorry  to  say.  Sit  down  and  make  your  miserable  life 
happy." 

Charlie  Covington  was  too  nervous  to  sit,  and  there 
was  not  sufficient  room  to  walk.  So  he  hovered  un- 
comfortably in  the  vicinity  of  Mr.  Childers,  who,  his 
nerves  being  well-trained  and  non-refractory,  was  not 
annoyed. 

"I'm  rather  upset  to-day,  Childers,"  he  said,  "and  I 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  57 

thought  I'd  run  in  and  see  you.  It  is  a  purely  per- 
sonal matter,  and  I  beg  that  you  will  consider  it  as 
such.  The  fact  is  that  I  am  the  miscreant  who  took 
Miss  Sydenham  to  that  loathsome  affair  at  the  music 
hall  last  night.  I — I  can't  tell  you  how  painful  it  is  to 
me  to  admit  it.  But  it  is  the  truth,  and — and — though 
I  might  have  influenced  her,  or  have  tried  to  influence 
her,  to  write  in  a  very  different  strain,  I — I'm  sorry  to 
say  I  didn't." 

Jack  Childers  looked  for  a  moment  in  amaze  at  the 
troubled  face  of  his  friend.  His  instincts  told  him 
that  the  Quixotic  Covington  was  self-reproachful.  But 
on  his  desk  before  him  was  Sallie  Sydenham's  "story," 
cut  out  and  on  view,  and  as  he  remembered  it  he  burst 
out  laughing. 

"I'm  glad  you  didn't  try  to  suppress  Sallie,"  he  said, 
simmering  from  his  laughter  to  a  smile.  "We  should 
have  missed  a  good  deal  if  you  had.  Her  story  to-day 
was  quite  the  happiest  thing  in  the  paper.  It  has  made 
a  hit.  I  read  it  twice,  and  laughed  more  heartily  at 
the  second  reading  than  at  the  first.  Sallie  has  such  a 
refreshingly  novel  way  of  looking  at  things." 

Charlie  Covington  peered  at  Mr.  Childers  for  a 
moment  without  speaking.  Then  he  said:  "I  don't 
believe  that  she  really  looks  at  things  in  the  reckless 
way  that  you  imagine.  She  expresses  herself  in  this 
abandoned  style  because  she  is  encouraged  to  do  so. 
But — old  man — don't  you  think  it's  rather  rough  on  a 
girl  ?  Isn't  it  just  a  trifle  low-down  to  allow  any  young 
woman  to  flaunt  herself  before  the  public  as  a — as  a 
— in  this  loose  and  degraded  way  ?  Do  you  think  that, 
as  a  man,  you  are  justified  in  countenancing  it?" 

Jack  Childers  was  surprised,  and  he  looked  it.  If 
Charlie  Covington  had  been  anybody  else,  he  would 
have  laughed  him  to  instant  subjection.  But  he  had  a 


5  8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

keen  admiration  for  this  slim  young  clubman  who  had 
one  foot  in  journalism  and  the  other  in  Utopia. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "you  are  blue  to-day. 
You  are  out  of  sorts.  Sallie  has  written  a  good  many 
articles  for  us,  and  they  have  all  been  rather  low  at  the 
neck  and  short  at  the  skirt.  But  they  are  clever  and 
they  are  brilliant.  It  is  refreshing  to  find  a  woman 
who  does  not  deal  with  these  matters  as  my  corps  of 
petticoated  frumps  would  do,  if  they  had  the  chance. 
You  must  remember  that  we  pay  Miss  Sydenham  an 
unusual  salary,  and  that  she  justifies  it  by  unusual 
work." 

"Oh,  I  know,  I  know  all  that,"  Mr.  Covington  re- 
torted impatiently.  "That  is  not  the  point.  Sallie  is 
a  giri — and  a  young  girl — thoughtless,  extravagant, 
and  foolish.  She  has  no  idea  what  she  is  doing  for 
herself.  She  is  sowing  a  terrible  seed,  and  she  will 
surely  reap  a  cruel  harvest." 

Jack  Childers  sighed.  He  hated  copy-book  senti- 
ments. "As  ye  sow,  so  shall  ye  reap"  seemed  to  him 
a  somewhat  banal  idea  for  the  fastidious  Mr.  Coving- 
ton  to  iterate. 

"This  is  not  a  Sunday-school,  my  boy,"  he  said 
rather  coldly,  "and  there  is  no  reason  why  Miss  Syd- 
enham should  believe  that  it  is.  She  is  a  nice,  jolly 
girl,  and  I  like  her  immensely.  Personally,  as  well  as 
professionally,  I  appreciate  her.  Let  her  alone,  Char- 
lie. When  she  is  fifty  she  can  write  recipes  for  pick- 
led cabbage,  and  advice  to  those  who  are  freckled  and 
seedy.  There  is  plenty  of  time." 

"You  do  not  understand  me,"  persisted  the  other. 
"I  said  at  the  beginning  that  this  was  personal.  Would 
you  care  to  see  your  cousin's  name  signed  to  Miss 
Sydenham's  article  of  to-day?" 

Jack  Childers  was  displeased,  and  a  flush  mounted 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  59 

to  his  forehead.  "Leave  Miss  Hampton  out,  Charlie," 
he  said,  "and  don't,  for  Heaven's  sake,  be  heroic.  Miss 
Sydenham  is  not  my  cousin.  If  she  were,  I  should  be 
very  sorry  indeed  to  see  her  in  journalism  in  any  ca- 
pacity. What — what  on  earth  is  the  matter  with  you 
to-day?" 

"Sallie  values  your  good  opinion,"  Mr.  Covington 
continued,  ploddingly,  blindly  seeking  a  weak  point 
in  the  managing  editor's  armor  coat.  "I  know  she 
does.  One  word  from  you  would  do  a  great  deal,  and 
I  think  you  should  speak  it.  The  girl  is  ruining  her- 
self for  a  salary.  As  you  say,  she  has  written  many 
decollete  effusions,  and  I  have  never  even  alluded  to 
them.  But  last  night  she  went  too  far.  There  is  a 
happy  medium  in  everything.  Besides,  it  is  bad  for  the 
paper  to  champion  a  woman  who  apparently — I  say 
apparently — forgets  her  sex." 

Mr.  Childers  folded  his  arms,  and  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  of  winking  at  the  serious  young  man. 
He  was  restored  to  good  humor,  and  he  realized  that 
if  Sallie's  article  brought  forth  such  protests  from  a 
friend,  it  was  indeed  even  more  startling  than  he  had 
imagined.  Jack  Childers  knew  the  value  of  startling, 
and  it  appealed  to  him. 

"If  I  thought  that  it  would  hurt  the  girl,"  he  said 
presently,  with  sincerity,  "I  would  do  as  you  suggest, 
Charlie.  But  it  cannot  hurt  her.  Sallie  is  a  little 
devil,  and  all  the  preaching  in  the  world  would  not  re- 
duce her  work  to  the  flabby  platitudes  of  a  seam- 
stress." 

"Miss  Sydenham's  better  self  detests  all  this,"  Mr. 
Covington  declared  emphatically.  "I  am  sure  of  it. 
She  assumes  a  pose,  but  in  reality  she  is  sensitive,  mod- 
est, and  more  femininely  decorous  than  all  your 
frumps." 


60  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Mr.  Childers  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I  dare  say," 
he  remarked.  "Why  not  ?  But  I  am  not  as  interested 
in  Sallie's  better  self  as  I  am  in  her  journalistic  dupli- 
cate. Why  should  I  be?  Come,  Charlie,  old  man, 
don't  you  see  that  you  are — you  are  way  off?  Prob- 
ably Bernhardt  has  a  better  self,  and  is  a  loving 
mother  and  a  doting  grandmother.  But  when  she  plays 
Camille  and  Tosca  and  other  discordantly  moral  ladies, 
we  accept  her  at  her  face  value,  and  are  thankful 
for  it.  How  is  the  book  world  ?" 

Mr.  Covington  sat  down,  fidgeted,  crossed  his  legs, 
stared  at  the  brass  door-knob  as  though  it  were  a  crys- 
tal globe  that  brought  to  his  consciousness  submerged 
visions  or  an  unimagined  futurity,  and  spoke  slowly. 

"Suppose,  old  man,"  he  said,  "suppose,  just  for  a 
moment,  that  you  were  in  love  with  Sallie  Sydenham — 
what  would  you  do?  Would  this  pose,  that  you  enjoy 
so  much  at  present,  appeal  to  you  as  a  happy  one? 
Would  your  chivalrous  sentiments  still  sink  themselves 
in  editorial  approval  of  'a  good  thing'?" 

The  young  man's  crystal-gazing  was  ineffective. 
The  managing  editor  laughed  heartily,  and  Charlie 
Covington  saw  that  he  had  gone  astray  in  his  hypothet- 
ical case. 

"My  imagination  is  a  fairly  good  one,"  said  Mr. 
Childers.  "It  is  not  called  into  play  very  frequently, 
as  you  may  suppose.  Still,  I  like  to  give  it  an  airing, 
and  shake  out  the  moths  occasionally.  But  I  cannot 
place  it  in  the  position  that  you  suggest.  Why  ask  me 
to  picture  myself  as  in  love  with  the  strange  ladies  of  a 
newspaper  office  ?  Are  you  going  to  wed  me  to  Amelia 
Amberg  Thingummy,  or  make  me  a  co-respondent  to 
Mr.  Anastasia  Atwood?  I  admit,  my  dear  fellow, 
that  Sallie  is  not  in  their  class,  never  was,  and  never 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  61 

will  be.  But  ...  I  am  not  going  to  fall  in  love  with 
her.  When  I  do,  she  will  not  be  asked  to  write  for  a 
living.  Poor  Sallie !  .  .  ." 

He  sighed  involuntarily,  and  was  not  quite  as  amused 
as  he  had  been.  Then  he  looked  rather  sharply 
at  the  dejected  features  of  Charlie  Covington,  after 
which  his  usual  charming  manner  reasserted  itself,  and 
he  glanced  tenderly  at  this  unsullied  friend  of  his.  He 
had  always  liked  Charlie  Covington,  and  now  he  felt 
fonder  of  him  than  ever,  for  he  saw  his  scruples  and 
understood,  though  he  failed  to  appreciate,  them. 

"Live  and  let  live,  Charlie,"  he  said.  "Sallie  is  earn- 
ing a  man's  salary  by  a  man's  work.  If  she  is  careful, 
she  can  quit  journalism  in  a  year  or  two,  and  marry 
or  not  marry,  or  do  whatever  she  likes.  Give  the  girl 
a  chance,  and  don't  preach  her  out  of  her  originality 
and  enthusiasm.  She  isn't  our  sister,  or  our  mother, 
or  our  sweetheart,  but  merely  a  good  fellow.  I  always 
tell  her  so.  I'm  quite  fond  of  her,  and  we  have  rare 
old  talks.  I  wish  she  smoked.  Over  a  pipe,  Sallie  and 
I  could  have  fine  times." 

"That  is  the  trouble,"  Mr.  Covington  insisted.  "It 
is  this  terrible  atmosphere  that  oppresses  her.  She 
lives  such  a  life!  She  should  have  women  friends. 
She  should  associate  occasionally  with  her  own  sex." 

"Why  don't  you  tell  her  so?"  cried  Mr.  Childers. 
"Surround  her  with  women,  if  you  think  it  is  better. 
Personally,  I  don't  agree  with  you.  Sallie  needs  con- 
genial spirits,  and  women  are  not  such  ...  for  her, 
at  any  rate.  But  try  it,  old  man,  and  see  what  it  will 
do.  Why  don't  you  suggest  it  to  her?" 

"I  have  no  influence  with  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  an- 
swered, with  a  tinge  of  bitterness.  "She  likes  me,  but 
I  am  merely  an  escort.  Perhaps  I  do  her  even  more 


62  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

harm  than  good.  I  suppose  that  people  talk  about  see- 
ing us  together  all  the  time.  I  wish  you  would  sug- 
gest the  idea  of  feminine  friends  to  her." 

"Not  I,"  retorted  Childers.  "It  is  none  of  my  busi- 
ness, and  I  prefer  to  keep  Sallie  for  myself.  I  may  be 
selfish,  but  I  shall  not  interfere.  She  must  do  as  she 
likes,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  And  she  will  come  to 
no  harm.  I  think  I  can  promise  you  that.  It  is  not 
the  outspoken  woman  who  comes  to  grief.  There  is  no 
corrosive  influence  in  a  plain  expression  of  frank  opin- 
ion. It  is  these  terrible  petticoated  frumps  with  the 
repressed  ideas  that  go  more  swiftly  to  perdition.  I'd 
trust  Sallie  further  than  I  would  the  Anastasia — hus- 
band, slot-machine  industry,  and  inspirational  poems 
notwithstanding." 

Charlie  Covington's  depression  was  heavy,  and  he 
could  not  shake  it  off.  It  clung  to  him  like  an  Old 
Man  of  the  Sea  and  seemed  to  throttle  him.  He  now 
felt  sorry  that  he  had  approached  Jack  Childers  on  this 
subject,  as  his  mission  had  proved  to  be  so  signally 
unsuccessful.  He  tried  to  believe  that  he  had  been 
making  mountains  out  of  molehills,  but  from  his  im- 
mutable view-point  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  that 
belief.  He  could  even  see  the  case  from  Mr.  Childers' 
position,  but  that  fact  brought  no  satisfaction  to 
his  mind.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  subject  Miss 
Sydenham  to  some  outside  influence — something  that 
would  oust  her  thoughts  from  the  eternal  routine 
of  Newspaperdom.  Her  avowed  antipathy  to  women 
might,  after  all,  be  part  of  her  pose.  He  was  not  clever 
enough  to  fathom  the  depths  of  her  character.  He 
would  do  what  he  could,  for  he  could  not  help  feeling 
responsible  for  her  welfare. 

But  he  could  not  discuss  irrelevancies  with  Jack 
Childers  to-day.  With  a  heavy  heart  he  left  the  news- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  63 

paper  office,  on  the  stairs  of  which  he  heard  two  un- 
fledged office  boys  indulging  in  ribald  laughter,  and  evi- 
dently analysing  the  obliquities  of  Sallie's  article.  He 
heard  one  lad  say  :  "She's  a  warm  one,  ain't  she?"  To 
which  the  other  replied :  "A  regular  scorcher." 
And  his  spirits  sank  to  their  lowest  ebb. 


64  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ALLIE  shook  the  dust  of  Newspaper  Row 
from  her  feet,  and  with  the  contents  of  her 
mail-box  unopened,  and  stowed  away  in  her 
pockets,  she  proceeded  homeward,  there  to 
bask  in  the  luxury  of  "a  night  off."  Theoretically, 
Sallie  revelled  in  the  idea  of  this  solitary,  inactive 
evening,  far  from  the  nocturnal,  moping  owls  and  the 
disgruntled  masculinity  of  Owldom.  She  buoyed  her- 
self up  with  the  anticipation  of  this  respite.  Yet  the 
anticipation  was  invariably  its  most  cheering  feature. 

She  hated — and  she  knew  that  she  hated — the  dull, 
unillumined,  meditative  evening  that  was  hers  when 
she  shook  off  her  shackles  and  retired  to  her  little  six- 
room  kennel  and  its  shabby  respectability.  It  was  all 
so  dreary,  so  morgue-like,  and  so  uninspiring.  She 
lived  in  a  tightly  filled  apartment  house,  near  the  con- 
venient Elevated  station  and  lines  of  clanging,  whiz- 
zing, orange-tinted  cable-cars.  But  when  her  hall  door 
had  closed,  she  felt  as  Robinson  Crusoe  must  have 
felt  on  his  desert  island. 

She  had  discovered  that  New  York  is  probably  the 
least  sociable  and  the  most  inquisitive  city  in  the  world. 
The  crowding  humanity  with  which  Sallie's  house 
bulged  was  devoted  to  "nine  refined  families,  without 
children."  These  families  were  heavily,  oppressively, 
dismally,  and  lugubriously  respectable.  Perhaps  if  the 
Malthusian  idea  had  been  less  rigidly  suggested  by  the 
owner  of  the  house,  the  "nine  refined  families"  might 
have  been  tinted  by  some  of  the  hues  of  humanity.  As 
it  was,  their  reputable  childlessness  and  indefatigable 
propriety  turned  the  milk  of  their  sympathy  into  a  sort 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  65 

of  curd  of  relentless  curiosity.  Not  one  of  the  child- 
less matrons  in  the  house  had  ever  called  upon  the 
lonely  girl,  or  sought  to  dissipate  the  titillant  suspicions 
that  her  demeanor  and  her  unchaperoned  celibacy  pos- 
sibly aroused.  The  matrons  preferred  the  titillant  sus- 
picions that  gave  spurious  spice  to  their  own  addled, 
abortive  lives. 

Why  did  she  live  alone?  What  respectable  girl 
ever  lived  alone?  How  was  it  that  no  women  ever 
came  to  see  her  ?  Was  it  true  that  she  had  been  to  the 
theatre,  "writing  pieces  for  a  paper,"  when  she  silently 
let  herself  in,  always  after  midnight?  Could  any  wo- 
man legitimately  afford  to  live  in  these  apartments, 
without  husband  or  protector?  They  could  have  an- 
swered all  these  questions  quite  easily,  but  they  pre- 
ferred not  to  do  so.  A  satisfactory  solution  of  these 
problems  would  have  been  most  .  .  .  unsatisfactory. 

In  houses  like  this,  where  dank  respectability  is  a 
blight  upon  the  uplifting  tendency  of  the  human  soul, 
and  where  the  proprieties  stalk  like  ghouls  in  the  ceme- 
tery of  sympathies  stark  and  dead,  the  boon  of  blithe 
and  recreative  intercourse  is  impossible.  Sallie  was 
left  severely  alone ;  but  nine  women  watched  her ;  nine 
pairs  of  eyes,  from  which  the  cradle  gleam  had  been 
crushed,  knew  the  exact  amount  of  her  grocer's,  butch- 
er's, and  baker's  bills ;  nine  opaque,  prosaic  minds  tried 
to  read  the  truth  of  her  Bohemianism  in  distorted 
script ;  nine  pairs  of  hands  were  ready  to  pull  her  down, 
if  she  gave  them  the  opportunity,  and  nine  pairs  of  feet 
would  have  jumped  upon  her  willingly  when  down. 
Yet  it  was  a  very  typical  New  York  apartment  house. 
Sallie  did  not  consciously  exact  sociability.  Had  she 
done  so,  she  could  have  found  it  in  the  so-called  slums. 
It  is  there  that  the  cultivation  of  exotic  selfishness  is 
stupidly  neglected. 


66  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

This  condition  of  things  appealed  most  strenuously 
to  Sallie's  gorgeous  sense  of  humor.  It  tickled  her, 
and  she  enjoyed  it.  She  had  learned  of  its  existence 
in  some  mysterious  way — possibly  through  Rosina,  her 
colored  maid,  a  most  devoted  damsel  with  a  coffee- 
cream  complexion,  who  easily  absorbed  outside  influ- 
ences. Sallie  was  pleased  to  feel  like  the  veiled  lady 
in  the  melodramas  that  she  loved  to  "guy."  She  re- 
joiced in  picturing  herself  as  leading,  perhaps,  a  dou- 
ble life — as  though  one  were  not  enough!  Perhaps 
these  ladies  thought  she  had  a  "cheeyild"  conveniently 
hidden,  and  two  or  three  well-seasoned  husbands  in 
deftly  scattered  localities. 

She  was  not  anxious  to  know  her  sister  occupants. 
She  felt  that  they  were  kitchen-y  creatures — the  sort 
of  women  who  are  always  flitting  around  dusting 
things  and  arranging  furniture.  She  disliked  the 
brand  very  cordially,  except  for  purposes  of  humor. 

And  now — and  now  she  was  home  again.  The  cov- 
eted respite  had  come  at  last,  and  with  its  advent  she 
experienced  her  usual  sense  of  dissatisfaction  and 
weariness.  Newspaper  Row  certainly  took  all  her  pith 
from  her  and  left  but  a  husk.  She  never  realized  how 
necessary  were  its  moil  and  excitement  to  her  until  she 
was  "home"  in  solitary  glory. 

Even  now  the  temptation  to  plunge  into  the  contents 
of  her  mail,  before  she  had  partaken  of  her  lonely  din- 
ner, was  strong  upon  her.  Under  such  conditions 
small  grievances,  like  ill-weeds,  grew  apace,  and  invol- 
untary exaggeration  achieved  preposterous  results.  So 
Sallie  sat  down  to  her  unenlivened  meal  and  allowed 
Rosina  to  appeal  to  her  appetite.  The  tinted  hand- 
maiden was  as  loquacious  as  the  rest  of  her  race,  and 
Sallie  was  too  weary  to  rejoice  in  a  dignified  silence. 
Rosina's  prattle  was  restful,  and  she  put  no  extin- 
guisher upon  it. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  67 

"The  people  downstairs,"  said  Rosina,  as  she  poured 
out  a  glass  of  cheap  claret  for  Sallie  (vintage,  the  day 
before  yesterday;  caves,  those  of  the  corner  grocery), 
"are  always  asking  about  you.  At  least,  their  girl  is,  and 
I  suppose  that  she  has  her  instructions.  They  kind  o' 
think  you're  in  the  chorus  somewhere.  Susan,  the  girl, 
asked  me  for  tickets,  so  that  she  could  see  you." 

Sallie  smiled.  "Do  I  look  so  chorus-y,  Rosina?"  she 
asked. 

"Not  to  me,"  declared  the  maiden,  rather  reluctant- 
ly; "but  I  suppose  they  notice  that — er — er — "  She 
hesitated,  and  would  probably  have  colored  if  nature 
had  left  a  place  for  such  visible  emotionalism  in  the 
dusky  tint  of  her  skin. 

"Notice  what?"  queried  Sallie,  sipping  her  wickedly 
up-to-date  claret. 

Rosina  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  she  said 
slowly :  "That  you  don't  look  quite  like  other  people." 

"Come,  out  with  it,  my  girl,"  cried  Miss  Sydenham, 
beginning  to  enjoy  herself.  "Why  don't  I  look  like 
other  people?  I  have  two  eyes,  and  a  nose,  and  two 
arms.  For  all  they  know  to  the  contrary,  I  don't  pos- 
sess a  wooden  leg.  Why  am  I  unlike  other  people?" 

"Well,"  said  Rosina,  rather  shamefacedly,  "Susan 
says  that  you  rouge  your  face  terribly,  and  that  private 
ladies — she  called  them  private  ladies — never  do.  I'd 
sooner  not  have  told  you,  Miss,  but  perhaps  it  is  best 
for  you  to  know  what  they  say.  I  told  Susan  that  it 
was  a  lie." 

"But  it  isn't,  Rosina,"  retorted  Miss  Sydenham.  "It 
is  quite  true.  See,"  and  with  her  serviette,  slightly 
moistened,  she  rubbed  her  cheek,  and  held  up  the  scar- 
let stain  for  inspection. 

The  handmaiden  looked  astonished.  "Of  course,  I 
knew  that  you  did  it,  Miss,"  she  gasped,  "but  I  thought 


68  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

it  best  to  tell  Susan  you  didn't,  because — er — well,  be- 
cause— " 

"Because  what  ?" 

"Oh,  Miss  Sydenham,"  the  girl  responded  awkward- 
ly, "why  are  you  so  strange?  You  know — I'm  sure 
you  know.  People  think  it  isn't  respectable." 

"Let  them  think,"  Miss  Sydenham  said,  as  she  slow- 
ly dissected  her  mutton-chop.  She  was  in  a  mood 
that  is  popularly  and  inelegantly  described  as  "cussed." 
Possibly  the  dignity  of  this  proceeding  may  not  be  par- 
ticularly impressive,  but  when  a  lonely  girl  is  compelled 
to  sit  in  comparative  solitude  with  the  alternative  of 
silent  dignity  or  frivolous  loquacity,  she  may  prefer 
the  latter,  even  if  she  be  forced  to  indulge  in  it  with 
none  but  a  domestic — and  her  own  domestic. 

Rosina  bustled  around  rather  aimlessly.  Her  good- 
natured  face  was  under  a  cloud.  She  was  restless  and 
uneasy,  for  she  was  quite  devoted  to  her  scatter-brained 
mistress,  and  very  nearly  understood  her  complex  char- 
acter. 

"I'm  older  than  you  are,  Miss  Sallie,"  she  said  pres- 
ently, when  the  rice-pudding  stage  had  approached, 
"and  I'm  only  a  colored  girl.  But  seems  to  me— and 
you'll  forgive  me  for  saying  it,  Miss— that  you  make 
a  mistake." 

Sallie  sighed.  She  thought  of  Charlie  Covington, 
and  of  Jack  Childers,  and  of  a  good  many  other  people 
and  things.  And  she  sighed  again  as  she  said:  "I 
make  a  good  many,  Rosina." 

"Oh,  no,  Miss.  You  know  your  own  business ;  but 
—but — wouldn't  it  be  a  good  thing  for  you,  Miss  Sal- 
lie,  if  you  stopped  these  folks  chattering?  If  they 
knew  you  they'd  like  you.  I'm  sure  if  you  asked  them 
up  to  "afternoon  tea  occasionally  they'd  come,  and — er 
—well,  it  would  kind  of  be  a  good  thing  for  you— all 


A   Girl  Who  Wrote  69 

alone  as  you  are.  They  don't  amount  to  much,  but 
they're  better  than  none  at  all.  It  isn't  good  for  a  girl 
like  you  always,  always  to  be  by  yourself.  It  isn't 
natural." 

Sallie  put  her  elbows  on  the  table  and  leaned  her 
head  upon  her  hands.  She  was  amused  and  slightly 
impressed  by  poor  Rosina's  words.  She  liked  this 
faithful,  humble  thing,  who  had  begun  by  calling  her 
"honey,"  and  whom  she  had  weaned  from  an  apparent- 
ly endearing  epithet  that  had  made  her  feel  like  a  coon 
song. 

"I  am  not  quite  alone,  Rosina,"  she  said,  with  forced 
gayety.  "You're  here,  aren't  you?  You  can  defend 
me.  I  don't  want  these  people,  and  I  won't  have  them. 
You  can  tell  them  that  I  paint,  and  that  I  put  my  feet 
on  the  table — it  is  my  table — and  that  I  smoke,  and — 
go  to  the  devil  generally." 

"But  you  don't,  Miss,"  was  the  quiet  rejoinder,  "and 
there  is  no  use  pretending  to  do  such  things.  I  wish 
you'd  get  married,  Miss  Sallie.  I  do,  indeed.  Girls 
hadn't  ought  to  live  like  men,  when  they  are  real — 
real  girls,  even  if  they  play  that  they're  not." 

"Then  you  positively  think  that,  after  all,  I  am  a  real, 
real  girl,  Rosina  ?" 

"  'Deed  'n  I  do,  honey,"  she  said,  relapsing  for  a 
moment  into  dialect,  and  then  shaking  it  off.  "You 
can't  fool  this  child.  You're  a  real  girl,  right  enough." 

"Give  me  a  light,  Rosina,"  Miss  Sydenham  went  on 
a  moment  later,  after  producing  a  cigarette.  "Thanks, 
very  much,"  puffing  forth  a  cloud  of  smoke  rather  rue- 
fully. "And  now" — lifting  one  small  foot  after  the 
other  and  deliberately  putting  both  on  the  table — "now 
do  you  think  I'm  a  real  girl  ?" 

The  colored  maid  chuckled.  In  her  honest  heart 
she  was  a  bit  startled;  but  Rosina  belonged  to  a  race 


70  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

that  loves  entertainment,  and  her  young  mistress  was 
as  good  as  a  variety  show.  She  had  laughed  at  less 
humorous  stage  incidents  in  her  loud  yet  melodious 
way. 

"Answer  me,  Rosina,"  Miss  Sydenham  persisted. 
"Take  a  good  look  first.  Here  I  am — cigarette  deli- 
cately poised  between  my  fingers — all  my  feet  rudely 
elevated  on  the  mahogany — signs  of  revelry  every- 
where—" She  pointed  to  the  cheap  claret  bottle  with- 
out a  label,  and  to  the  luxurious  remains  of  the  muddy 
rice  pudding.  "You  see  how  horribly  unwomanly  it 
all  is.  No  crochet,  no  embroidery,  no  stockings  to 
darn — nothing — nothing — nothing.  Tell  me  even  now 
— am  I  a  real  woman?" 

Sallie  waited  impatiently  for  the  answer,  as  she  found 
elevated  feet  most  uncomfortable  (how  could  Jack 
Childers  invariably  sit  with  them  perched  aloft?)  and 
the  cigarette  smoke  irritated  her  bronchial  tubes  most 
alarmingly. 

"Even  now,"  replied  Rosina,  with  a  grin  that  seemed 
to  be  all  wool  and  a  yard  wide,  "you're  a  real  girl,  and 
you  ought  to  be  a  wife  and  a  mother ;  and  you  will  be, 
when  the  right  man  comes  along.  And  I  dare  say — I 
shouldn't  be  surprised — if  you  knew  that  right  man 
now,  and — was  just  waiting  for  him  to  say  'Be 
mine.'  " 

Sallie  flushed  quickly,  and  then  laughed — rather 
mirthlessly.  She  was  very  nearly  amused,  but  not 
quite.  Rosina  jarred  upon  her  nerves  somewhat  se- 
verely. She  was  rather  vexed  that  she  had  counte- 
nanced this  dialogue.  But  it  was  better  than 
soliloquizing.  She  rather  envied  Hamlet  and  other 
soliloquizing  gentlemen  who  could  ease  their  souls  by 
saying  lovely  things  to  nobody  in  particular.  Such 
habits  must  be  comforting  as  the  confessional.  If  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  71 

had  only  been  born  into  stage  life  instead  of  real  life, 
nothing  would  have  mattered,  for  on  the  stage  the  vil- 
lain in  his  cell,  and  the  hero  on  a  desert  island,  are  never 
silent  or  lonely.  They  talk  to  the  stones  or  the  grass, 
and  are  quite  happy  and  chatty. 

She  sent  Rosina  away  and  put  her  feet  down.  Then 
she  threw  away  the  cigarette,  which  she  had  so  often 
tried,  unsuccessfully,  to  enjoy.  Carefully  she  placed 
the  cork  in  the  bottle  of  evil  claret,  and  laughed  aloud 
as  she  recalled  Jack  Childers'  epicurean  remarks  on 
the  subject  of  claret.  "After  a  bottle  has  been  opened 
it  is  no  good  except  to  drink  immediately,"  he  had  said. 
"Even  the  hole  made  by  a  corkscrew  spoils  claret.  It 
should  never  be  kept.  And  never  buy  cheap  claret. 
Water  is  much  healthier  and  pleasanter."  And  then 
— she  recalled  it  all  quite  readily — he  had  spoken  of 
Pommard,  and  Beaune,  and  St.  Julien,  and  St.  Estephe. 
She  wondered  what  he  would  think  of  her  pet  brand, 
bought  at  the  grocer's,  with  a  tin  of  tomatoes  and  some 
strawberry  jam? 

The  idea  tickled  her  fancy  so  that  she  laughed  con- 
tinuously for  at  least  two  minutes.  He  would  think 
that  she  was  very  squalid.  Jack  Childers  was  one  of 
those  many  men  who  discuss  wine  as  though  it  were  a 
religion..  He  had  a  regular  wine  creed.  He  could 
argue  about  Pommery  as  though  it  were  Christian  Sci- 
ence. Once  he  had  been  seriously  offended  with  her 
because  she  had  insisted  upon  putting  sugar  in  her 
Sauterne.  They  had  dined  together  that  night — it 
was  a  busy  office  night — and  neither  had  been  able  to 
go  uptown.  Mr.  Childers  was  most  devout  on  the  sub- 
ject of  wine. 

The  table  had  been  cleared,  and  Rosina,  with  one 
or  two  sympathetic  glances  at  her  mistress,  had  re- 
tired to  the  kitchen.  Miss  Sydenham  felt  that  she  was 


72  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

now  strong  enough  to  open  her  mail,  and  prepared  her- 
self for  its  usual  revelations. 

The  first  letter  she  opened  was  from  a  "gentleman," 
who  gave  his  name  and  address.  He  had  read  her 
"racy"  articles  for  a  long  time  with  keen  delight.  But 
it  was  her  frank  and  breezy  handling  of  the  duel  inci- 
dent at  the  music-hall  that  had  at  last  induced  him  to 
write  to  her.  He  would  be  extremely  glad  to  meet  her. 
He  was  young  and  affluent,  and  he  added,  as  a  sort  of 
afterthought,  in  the  nauseating  language  of  the  crea- 
tures who  frequent  the  "personal"  column  of  public 
organs,  that  he  was  "very  fond  of  fun." 

Sallie  tore  up  the  letter  in  a  fury,  and  the  fact  that, 
by  her  work,  she  had  laid  herself  open  to  just  such  in- 
sult was  no  balm  to  her  indignation.  It  was  disgust- 
ing, and  for  a  moment,  a  wild  idea  of  answering  the 
letter  flitted  through  her  brain.  It  was  several  minutes 
before  she  was  able  to  smile  again,  and  to  place  the  in- 
cident where  it  belonged. 

Letter  No.  2  was  from  an  actress  whom  Sallie  had 
called  fat.  "You — you,  of  all  people,  should  be  careful 
how  you  criticize  personal  appearance,"  wrote  the  in- 
furiated lady.  "Why,  you're  more  made  up  than  any 
of  us — with  your  red  cheeks  and  your  bleached 
hair  .  .  ." 

Then  came  a  note  signed  "Wife  and  Mother,"  beg- 
ging Sallie  to  reform  before  it  was  too  late.  This 
kindly  correspondent  insisted  that  Sallie  had  an  immor- 
tal soul,  which  she  was  jeopardizing  by  her  reckless, 
ruthless  work.  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man— aye,  and 
a  woman,"  she  wrote,  sexing  the  Biblical  quotation 
comfortably  to  fit  the  situation,  "if  she  win  the  whole 
world  and  lose  her  own  soul?" 

The  anonymous  letter  is  popularly  supposed  to  have 
no  sting.  Logic  is  always  played  effectively  around  it, 


A   Girl  Who  Wrote  73 

and  this  logic  says  that  if  a  writer  be  too  cowardly  to 
sign  his  name  to  his  communication,  his  bark  must  be 
worse  than  his  bite.  But  all  this  is  unavailing.  The 
anonymous  letter  is  invariably  cruel.  Those  that  came 
to  Sallie  Sydenham,  and  they  were  many,  wounded  her 
deeply. 

The  handwriting  of  the  next  letter  was  familiar  to 
her.  It  was  that  of  her  only  sister,  Lettie,  in  Chicago, 
and  Sallie's  eyes  moistened  as  she  opened  it.  The 
"family"  instinct,  repressed  and  starved  as  it  was,  nev- 
ertheless asserted  itself. 

"My  darling  old  girl,"  wrote  Lettie,  "I  feel  so  terri- 
bly like  an  Old  Woman  of  the  Sea  as  I  write  these  lines, 
that  I  am  quite  ashamed  of  myself.  It's  about  those 
singing  lessons.  The  one  lesson  a  week  has  been  get- 
ting along  very  nicely,  and  Mme.  Valerie  seemed  to 
think  it  enough.  You  remember  we  told  her  that  we 
were  not  millionaires.  Well,  to  put  it  briefly,  the  lady 
now  declares  that  two  will  be  absolutely  necessary,  and 
that  if  I  wish  to  continue  I  cannot  do  with  less.  Isn't 
it  horrid?  I  do  so  hate  asking  you  for  more  money, 
you  dear,  good,  hard-working  girl,  but  I  know  you 
would  be  indignant  if  I  didn't  tell  you  the  whole  truth. 
It  means  ten  dollars  a  week  more — and  more  music — 
and — oh,  I  loathe  myself  .  .  ." 

Sallie's  eyes  grew  even  moisten  She  was  grateful 
for  this  letter  from  the  one  person  in  the  world  who 
really  loved  her,  for  her  real  self.  Many  "self-support- 
ing" girls  would  have  regarded  Lettie  as  a  very  serious 
incubus.  To  Sallie  this  responsibility  was  one  of  the 
few  genuine  pleasures  of  her  life.  She  was  thankful 
that  she  was  able  to  respond  in  coin,  and  if  Sallie  played 
her  part  in  Newspaper  Row  too  realistically  for  the 
fastidious,  she  never  forgot  that  it  gave  her  the  power 
to  aid  Lettie. 


74  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

And  so  it  came  about  that  the  contents  of  the  next 
letter,  which  bore  the  signature  of  Charlie  Covington, 
fell  even  natter  than  they  would  have  done  under  less 
strenuous  circumstances  and  conditions.  This  was  the 
letter  :— 
"My  Dear  Sallie: 

"Your  article  on  that  luckless  music-hall  show  pained 
me  more  than  I  can  tell  you.  If  you  choose  to  so  think, 
you  can  call  it  selfish  pain,  for  I  have  reproached 
myself  bitterly  ever  since  for  my  criminal  behavior  in 
allowing  you  to  remain  in  the  theatre.  But,  putting 
aside  my  own  feelings,  don't  you  see— can't  you  see- 
that  you  are  injuring  yourself,  and  that  in  the  long  run 
these  methods,  which  your  ill-advised  newspaper 
friends  laugh  at  to-day,  will  ruin  you?  My  dear  girl, 
you  surely  believe  that  I  am  your  friend.  I  have  tried 
to  show  you  that  I  am.  And  I  say  that  you  must  posi- 
tively be  a  little  more  careful.  Don't  sacrifice  all  that 
is  best  in  a  woman,  for  the  sake  of  the  trivial  applause 
of  those  who  don't  care  a  hang  what  happens  to  you. 
In  a  year  or  two,  at  this  rate,  you  will  be  useless. 
I  felt  so  mortified  that  I  contemplated  calling  at  your 
house  to  see  you  about  it.  I  know  you  would  have 
welcomed  such  a  visit,  because  it  would  have  been  so 
unconventional.  But  for  your  own  sake  I  nipped  my- 
self in  the  bud.  Do,  for  goodness'  sake,  try  and  cul- 
tivate the  acquaintance  of  a  few  women.  .  .  ." 

Sallie  threw  the  letter  aside  rather  contemptuously. 
She  felt  sorry  to  think  that  Charlie  Covington  was  so 
genuinely  irritated ;  but  it  could  not  be  helped.  The 
role  of  the  cut-and-dried  newspaper  woman  was  so 
odious  to  her  that  she  would  continue  to  steer  as  far 
away  from  it  as  she  possibly  could.  She  had  no  incli- 
nation to  be  a  frump.  And  she  smiled  as  she  thought 
of  Jack  Childers'  remarks  on  his  army  of  trained  jour- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  75 

nalistic  ladies — poetesses,  freckle  removers,  recipe 
writers,  and  "society"  butterflies.  Anything — rather 
than  roles  like  that.  She  refused  to  sink  to  such  a 
level. 

"They  say,"  ran  Sallie's  thoughts,  "that  the  newspa- 
per woman  unsexes  herself.  What  is  worth  doing  at 
all  is  worth  doing  well.  If  I've  got  to  unsex  myself,  I 
may  as  well  do  it  as  thoroughly  as  possible." 

In  her  heart  she  had  no  faith  in  this  flippant  solution 
of  a  tedious  problem.  Sallie  knew  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  a  woman  can  remain  a  woman  even  in  a  newspa- 
per office,  if  she  cares  to  do  so.  The  trouble  was  that 
nobody  cared  to  do  so.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson, 
Happy  Hippy,  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  and  Anastasia  At- 
wood  were  not  women.  They  were  feeble  imitations 
of  men.  They  had  the  weaknesses  of  their  own  sex, 
and  the  impudent  self-reliance  of  the  other.  Sallie 
did  not  care  for  counterfeits. 

The  next  envelope  contained  Mr.  Atkinson  Smith's 
invitation  to  the  newspaper  anniversary  celebration  and 
the  cold  collation!  Sallie  was  young  enough  to  feel 
rather  pleasantly  excited  about  this.  In  fact — and 
those  who  have  already  dubbed  her  "strong-minded" 
will  be  grieved  to  hear  it — she  forgot  everything  else, 
and  like  a  vain  little  popinjay  began  to  wonder  if  her 
blue  silk  evening  dress,  with  the  lace,  would  be  good 
enough. 

"I  suppose  Jack  Childers'  aunt  and  that  wonderful 
cousin  of  his  will  be  there,"  she  said  aloud,  "and  I'm 
simply  pining  to  see  them.  And  I  must  look  nice,  for 
he  will  surely  introduce  me — and  then  Charlie  Coving- 
ton  will  be  satisfied,  for  I  shall  know  a  woman  or  two. 
That  kind  of  woman  I'm  willing  to  know." 

She  rose  and  walked  up  and  down,  rather  sur- 
prised to  see  the  sepia  features  of  Rosina  in  the  door- 


76  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

way.  The  handmaiden,  roused  by  the  sound  of  her 
mistress's  voice,  was  in  hopes  that  somebody  had  at  last 
slipped  in  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  the  girl's  evening. 
But  she  saw  that  Sallie  was  alone,  and  her  face  fell. 

"If  you've  got  to  talk  to  yourself,  honey — I  mean 
Miss  Sallie — then  we  had  better  call  in  some  neighbors, 
or  somebody.  They  say  that  those  who  talk  to  them- 
selves talk  to  the  devil." 

Miss  Sydenham  laughed  in  sheer  cheeriness  of  spirit. 
"You're  very  rude,  Rosina,"  she  said;  "but  it  doesn't 
matter,  and  I  can't  bother  about  scolding  you.  I'm 
asked  out  to  an  evening  at  the  office  next  week,  and 
heaps  of  people  will  be  there,  and  I  shall  get  to  know 
them,  and  perhaps  I'll  ask  them  to  dinner,  and  then 
there'll  be  no  more  solemn,  silent  evenings.  And  I 
shall  become  so  respectable  that  Mrs.  Thingummy 
downstairs  will  move  away  in  desperation.  Rosina, 
you  must  mend  my  blue  silk  dress  for  me,  and  I'll  go 
to  that  reception  and  make  the  hit  of  my  life." 

"And  will  he  be  there?"  asked  Rosina,  with  a  very 
wide  smile. 

"Who?"  sharply. 

"The  right  man." 

"Rosina,  you're  bad — bad  to  the  core,"  said  Sallie, 
severely.  "All  my  lords  and  masters  will  be  there,  and 
the  entire  staff,  and  a  lot  of  swell  outsiders,  and  actors, 
and  judges,  and  high-executioners.  And  Miss  Syden- 
ham will  wait  until  they  have  all  arrived,  when  she 
will  frou-frou  in  and  be  introduced  coyly  and  reluc- 
tantly. Everybody  will  say,  'Who  is  that  sweet  girl 
in  blue?'  And  the  sweet  girl  will  bestow  her  favors 
on  all  alike.  She  doesn't  get  such  a  chance  every  day. 
She  has  nothing  but  gloomy  old  theatres  and  news- 
paper columns  to  contend  with." 

And  Sallie  sat  down  and  gayly  opened  the  rest  of  her 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  77 

letters.  There  were  tickets  for  a  reading  by  a  dec- 
ollete authoress;  two  more  anonymous  notes,  warm 
and  vituperative;  a  managerial  request  for  a  curtain- 
raiser  from  her  pen  (in  order  that  she  might  hence- 
forth deal  tenderly  with  that  generous  manager's  pro- 
ductions) ;  a  demand  for  an  interview,  and  other  sig- 
nificant affairs. 

Sallie  tore  them  all  up,  and  wrote  her  answer  to 
Lettie. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

|  HE  anniversary  celebration  in  Owldom  was 
very  large,  multi-colored,  obtrusive,  and  pro- 
trusive. The  owls  blinked  in  a  veritable  ec- 
stasy of  electric  light,  and  cast  a  most  allur- 
ing iridescence  over  City  Hall  Park.  Poor  old  Ben 
Franklin,  immovable  as  ever,  glared  stonily  upon  the 
external  "goings-on,"  and  Greeley  looked  as  though 
he  could  have  said  a  thing  or  two  on  the  subject  of 
"this  auspicious  occasion" — not  necessarily  for  publi- 
cation, but  as  a  guarantee  of  good  faith.  Not  a  soli- 
tary light,  human  or  other,  was  hidden  beneath  a 
bushel.  In  fact,  bushels  were  distinctly  vetoed.  Any- 
body who  could  say  anything,  or  do  anything,  or  see 
anything,  or  wear  anything,  or  think  anything,  said  it, 
and  did  it,  and  saw  it,  and  wore  it,  and  thought  it,  in 
the  blinding  light  of  Owldom  publicity. 

The  reception  was  held  in  a  huge  and  handsomely 
carpeted  room,  where  ponderous  editorial  writers  hung 
daily  upon  the  editorial  "we"  as  though  it  were  a  ver- 
bal trapeze.  Opening  from  this  apartment  was  a  sanc- 
tum, in  which  the  "cold  collation"  had  been  prepared 
'  upon  a  most  elaborate  scale,  and  quite  regardless  of  ex- 
pense. To  the  reportorial  mind  this  feature  of  the 
entertainment  represented  emphatic  festivity ;  to  the  ed- 
itorial mind,  wholesome  and  pardonable  relaxation ;  to 
the  general,  non- journalistic  mind,  happy  oblivion  and 
a  logical  raison  d'etre.  Perhaps  the  reportorial  mind 
had  the  best  of  it. 

Everybody  who  was  anybody  had  been  invited,  but- 
many  who  were  nobodies  appeared.  Still,  it  could 
safely  be  chronicled  that  there  was  a  "representative 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  79 

gathering"  present,  because  that  popular  phrase  is  so 
delightfully  vague,  so  exquisitely  elastic,  and  so  amia- 
bly misleading.  There  were  a  few  lawyers,  who 
loved  to  see  their  names  in  print;  a  judge  or  two;  a 
highly  jocular  coroner,  whose  inquests  were  witty,  rol- 
licking things;  two  police  justices,  famed  for  their 
trenchant,  entertaining  dealings  with  the  "drunk  and 
disorderly"  class;  two  gentlemen  and  three  ladies  on 
the  outside  edge  of  society,  who  had  "got  there"  by 
astute  journalism,  and  who  were  grateful  for  a  sort  of 
first  aid  to  the  ambitious;  a  whole  galaxy  of  unread 
authors  with  unreadable  wares  on  the  market,  and 
prospects  of  more ;  and  a  senator  famous  for  his  after- 
dinner  speeches  and  a  picturesque  re-marriage,  and 
eminently  popular  in  Owldom,  inasmuch  as  he  was  in- 
variably willing  to  rise  from  his  downy  couch  at  the 
dead  of  night  to  tell  any  reporter  anything — either  true 
or  false;  false  preferred. 

In  addition  to  these  celebrities  there  was  a  wonder- 
fully secular  minister,  whose  custom  it  was  to  "take" 
a  Biblical  text,  and  then  proceed  to  preach  about  rapid 
transit,  or  the  Horse  Show ;  another  gentleman  of  the 
so-called  cloth,  who  had  made  a  great  hit  with  a  novel 
and  not  uncomfortable  theory  of  Hell ;  and  a  third  who 
criticized  immoral  plays,  and  seemed  to  spend  his  life 
clamoring  for  a  "clean  stage,"  which  he  was  duly 
thankful  not  to  get,  for  it  would  have  thrown  him  out 
of  a  lucrative  "job."  The  stage  itself  was,  of  course, 
largely  represented ;  in  fact,  it  rushed  to  Owldom  from 
its  dressing-rooms. 

Popular  actresses  came  without  husbands,  and  favor- 
ite actors  appeared  minus  wives.  They  were,  of 
course,  "wedded  to  their  art."  There  was  a  sprinkling 
of  soubrettes,  accompanied  by  chaste,  alpaca  "mom- 
mers"  who  were  guaranteed  never  to  see  anything  but 


8o  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

treasury  day,  and  there  were  one  or  two  "head-line" 
variety  people  whose  names  were  household  words, 
thanks  to  severe  advertisement. 

The  staff  wore  its  best  bib  and  tucker,  and  was  quite 
irresistible.  Jack  Childers,  looking  rather  red  and  em- 
barrassed— as  though  this  sort  of  thing  had  not  been 
stipulated  in  his  contract — stood  in  a  corner  with  Mrs. 
Hampton,  his  aunt,  and  his  charming  cousin,  Miss  Ivy 
Hampton,  pale,  ingenuous,  tall,  with  shining  silver- 
gold  hair,  and  a  quaint  retrousse  nose.  Mrs.  Hampton 
surveyed  the  gathering  through  a  pair  of  insolent 
lorgnettes — very  much  as  though  it  were  a  cattle  show. 
She  held  herself  supremely  aloof,  and  clung  to  Ivy's 
hand  as  though  she  feared  the  girl's  contamination. 

The  night  city  editor,  Mr.  Green,  appeared  with  his 
wife,  a  massive  person  who  wore  black  satin  because 
it  had  been  fashionable  many  years  ago.  Mr.  Green 
had  excavated  his  evening  clothes  from  a  household 
sarcophagus  flavored  with  camphor,  and  stood  there, 
hoping  that  no  fire  or  murder  would  happen  before  he 
had  introduced  Mrs.  Green  to  the  cold  collation. 

Little  Robinson,  the  refractory  reporter  who  balked 
at  an  obituary  notice,  sat  waiting  for  Sallie  Sydenham, 
in  whom  he  was  exceedingly  interested.  The  reporter 
known  as  "the  man  with  the  nerve"  sat  by  the  door  lead- 
ing to  the  cold  collation  shrine,  gathering  his  forces 
for  an  attack  upon  salad  and  champagne.  Young 
Jones,  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  also  kept  his  eyes 
upon  this  door,  for  if  a  reporter  isn't  hungry — he  isn't 
a  reporter.  Poor  old  Tomlinson,  in  his  seedy  clothes, 
had  arrived  early  to  drink  to  the  happiness  of  anybody, 
living  or  dead.  He  was  perfectly  willing  to  drench 
himself  in  champagne  with  but  slight  provocation,  and 
to  him  souls  incarnate  or  discarnate  were  mere  details. 

Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  in  a  rich  gown  of 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  81 

velveteen  (with  the  accent  on  the  "teen"),  talked 
blithely  to  the  affable  senator,  whom  she  had  button- 
holed and  cornered,  and  who  seemed  to  be  looking 
hopelessly  and  unsuccessfully  for  means  of  escape.  She 
kept  her  eye  on  a  little  pet  mole  on  his  nose  that  he 
cherished,  and  cared  for,  and  which  she  would  have  re- 
moved for  him  neatly  with  one  application  of  her  fa- 
mous salve,  if  he  had  only  asked !  As  it  was,  they  dis- 
cussed generalities — or  at  least  Mrs.  Hutchinson  dis- 
cussed them.  The  senator  "came  in"  with  a  haphaz- 
ard "yes"  or  "no"  when  he  thought  it  necessary  for 
purposes  of  color.  The  lady  wore  her  "happy-wife- 
and-mother"  look,  as  though  her  only  desire  on  this 
earth  were  to  be  good. 

Stalking  about  among  the  crowd  was  Lamp-Post 
Lucy,  in  a  "rainy  day"  skirt  that  was  not  quite  as 
"rainy"  as  usual,  and  a  glossy  set  of  patent  leather 
shoes  opening  upon  buff  stockings.  She  towered 
above  her  surroundings,  if  not  mentally,  at  least  phys- 
ically. Nobody  talked  to  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  because 
she  seemed  to  suggest  telephonic  communication  only 
— as  though  she  were  made  to  be  rung  up.  So  she 
tramped  up  and  down,  making  one  futile  attempt  to 
capture  Happy  Hippy,  as  a  sort  of  last  resort. 

It  was  useless  for  a  mere  woman  to  think  of  Happy 
Hippy.  She  was  out  on  the  forage,  and  looked  upon 
this  "auspicious  occasion"  as  a  gleaming  opportunity. 
Little  Robinson,  who  was  inclined  to  be  funny,  de- 
clared that  her  hips  had  been  pumped  up  at  a  bicycle 
repair  shop,  and  were  exceedingly  resilient.  She  had 
captured  the  secular  minister,  who  was  a  widower,  and 
sat  with  him  in  a  corner  asking  him  rude  questions. 

Anastasia  Atwood,  hung  in  white,  had  already 
fainted  twice  from  the  heat,  and  nothing  but  champagne 
had  succeeded  in  reviving  her.  She  had  brought  her 


82  "A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

husband — a  tiny  fat  person — along  with  her,  and  she 
used  him  effectively.  When  she  was  alone  she  tugged 
at  his  leader  and  pulled  him  in.  When  anybody  prom- 
ising approached  her,  she  let  him  run  away  and  play, 
which  he  did  with  singular  alacrity. 

The  other  ladies  of  the  staff  chattered  incessantly 
and  enjoyed  themselves  hugely.  Miss  Rita  Eisenstein, 
the  society  writer,  affected  to  deplore  the  absence  of 
the  Four  Hundred,  and  said  that  she  felt  rather  "out 
of  it,"  in  such  an  exceedingly  promiscuous  gathering. 
She  wore  a  severely  simple  "shirt-waist"  and  a  black 
skirt,  as  though  this  ungraceful  assemblage  were 
scarcely  worth  dressing  for.  Miss  Munson  trotted 
about  with  mamma,  pouting  as  prettily  as  she  could, 
and  dragging  her  astonished  parent  about  by  sheer 
physical  force.  Miss  Higgins  was  also  there,  quite 
willing  to  be  recognized  by  the  many  whom  she  had  in- 
terviewed, but  forced  to  acknowledge  that  she  was  not 
in  tumultuous  quest. 

Several  of  the  ladies  made  ineffectual  efforts  to 
pounce  upon  Charlie  Covington;  but  Mr.  Covington 
was  not  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  Moreover,  the  bevy 
of  authors  with  wares  in  the  market  were  up  and  at 
him,  leaving  him  very  little  leisure,  and  thanking  him 
for  things  that  he  had  never  written,  but  that  they 
hoped  he  would  write.  The  struggling  author  and  the 
book  reviewer  rarely  meet.  Harsh  fate  does  not  cast 
them  together,  as  it  does  the  luckless  dramatic  critic 
and  the  thankless  actor.  So  Mr.  Covington  found  that 
he  was  immensely  popular,  and  was  rather  pleased. 
His  reviews  were  always  so  colorless  and  generally 
facile,  that  even  a  Marie  Corelli  would  have  patted  him 
on  the  back  and  called  him  a  dear  little  flunkey. 

It  was  quite  late  when  Sallie  Sydenham  fluttered  in, 
and  if  she  had  been  anxious  to  make  a  sensation,  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  83 

must  have  been  perfectly  satisfied.  The  old  blue  dress 
had  been  manipulated  by  the  artistic  yet  sepia  hand- 
maiden, whose  long,  visible  stitches  had  been  rather 
cruelly  hidden  by  home-made  ruching.  And  in  con- 
nection with  woman's  dress  the  phrase  "home-made," 
that,  applied  to  pies,  and  cakes,  and  fancy  work,  is  so 
charming,  becomes  a  curse.  Sallie's  war  paint  had  not 
been  forgotten.  Her  eyes  were  very  dark,  her  lips 
very  red,  her  cheeks  very  crimson,  and  her  hair  very 
yellow.  Moreover,  her  bodice  was  cut  low — it  was  the 
only  thing  of  its  kind  in  the  room — and  she  wore  a 
pair  of  high-heeled  shoes  that  clicked  as  she  walked. 

Charlie  Covington  bit  his  lip  and  colored  as  he  saw 
her.  She  was  irrepressible — wickedly  irrepressible. 
Either  she  was  anxious  to  shock  people,  or  was  too 
ignorant  to  adapt  herself  to  circumstances.  She  looked 
like  a  third-rate  soubrette  in  a  company  addicted  to 
what  are  known  as  "one-night  stands,"  and  as  she 
flounced  in,  the  attention  of  the  entire  room  was  rivet- 
ed upon  her.  But  if  all  the  room  saw  Sallie,  Sallie 
saw  all  the  room,  and  was  very  thorough  about  it.  Her 
keen  little  eyes  had  discovered  men,  frumps,  and  hang- 
ers-on, even  before  the  men,  frumps,  and  hangers-on 
had  discovered  her. 

The  newspaper  ladies  tittered  and  seemed  highly 
amused.  A  few  frowns  appeared  later  when  Miss 
Sydenham's  identity  was  announced,  and  the  frowns 
grew  positively  ominous  when  Sallie  was,  in  an  instant, 
the  centre  of  a  little  circle  that  seemed  to  be  playing 
kiss-in-the-ring. 

While  Sallie  talked,  and  laughed,  and  said  outra- 
geously flippant  things  her  eyes  rested  upon  Jack  Child- 
ers,  his  aunt,  and  his  cousin.  She  could  scarcely  re- 
press her  admiration  for  Ivy  as  the  young  woman 
stood,  tall  and  impressive,  like  a  Gibson  girl,  sur- 


84  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

prised  in  her  stateliness.  As  she  watched  her  standing 
by  Childers,  she  wondered  how  he  could  ever  escape 
her  fascination.  Perhaps  he  couldn't,  and  didn't.  He 
seemed  to  look  upon  her  with  a  quiet  glance  of  owner- 
ship, and  Sallie,  intent  upon  the  picture,  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  keep  up  her  flippancies. 

"Curious  looking  girl,  but  very  brilliant,"  remarked 
the  senator  to  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  refer- 
ring to  Sallie.  "Of  course  you  know  her  well  ?" 

The  freckle-remover  pursed  up  her  lips.  "In  a  news- 
paper office,"  she  said,  "one  has  to  draw  the  line  some- 
where. I  draw  it  at  Miss  Sydenham.  I  do  not  ap- 
prove of  ribaldry.  I  am  a  wife  and  mother." 

The  senator  looked  rather  bored,  as  though  he  didn't 
care  how  many  wives  and  mothers  she  was.  He  made 
a  movement  as  though  to  join  Sallie's  circle,  but  Mrs. 
Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  pounced  upon  him  and 
drew  him  back.  A  similar  proceeding  might  have 
been  noticed  on  the  part  of  the  poetess.  Her  husband, 
who  had  been  pulled  in  some  time  ago  to  relieve  An- 
astasia's  wall-flower-dom,  evidently  thought  it  was 
about  time  to  run  away  and  play  again.  He  was 
reined  in  at  once. 

"Don't  you  dare  to  speak  to  that  wretch  of  a  girl," 
Anastasia  whispered  in  a  staccato  manner  usually  re- 
served for  her  domesticity.  "I  won't  tolerate  it  for  a 
moment."  Then,  as  Mr.  Covington  passed  her,  she 
remarked:  "I  was  just  telling  Harry  that  I  feel  so 
strange  and  perplexed  here  that  I  can't  bear  to  let  him 
go  out  of  my  sight." 

Presently  Jack  Childers  left  his  aunt  and  cousin  and 
bore  slowly  down  upon  Sallie.  She  saw  his  departure 
the  instant  it  occurred,  and  she  also  noticed  that  Miss 
Hampton  was  immediately  approached  by  Arthur 
Stuyvesant,  the  favorite  matinee  actor,  who  instantly 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  85 

engaged  her  in  conversation.  Sallie  was  so  surprised 
at  this — Miss  Hampton  looked  supremely  the  wrong 
sort  for  a  man  like  Stuyvesant  to  attempt — that  she  was 
unaware  that  Mr.  Childers  at  last  stood  by  her  side. 

She  left  her  circle  and  walked  slowly  with  him  down 
the  room. 

"Solomon  in  all  his  glory — "  began  Mr.  Childers, 
looking  with  amusement  at  her  attire.  It  was  so  like 
what  he  could  have  imagined  that  Sallie  would  wear. 

"Good  old  glory,"  retorted  Sally.  "Glory  that  has 
seen  better  days.  But" — her  eyes  dancing — "it  doesn't 
matter.  I  wanted  to  come  so  badly  that  I'm  thankful 
I  own  this  old  blue  relic." 

"Did  you  really  want  to  come?    Why?" 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "it  is  a  change.  I  never  get  any  op- 
portunity to  see  people  or  to  laugh — outside  of  the 
theatre,  which  is  only  a  metier.  This  is  really  charm- 
ing to  me.  I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Childers,  that  if  I  were  rich 
I  should  revel  in  parties,  and  dances,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing.  It  would  be  so  exciting." 

He  smiled  at  this  ingenuousness,  but  he  thought  it 
was  an  assumption. 

"I  didn't  think  this  sort  of  thing  would  have  appealed 
to  you,"  he  said. 

"Why  not  ?"  asked  Sallie,  gayly.  She  looked  at  him 
in  his  bland  evening-dress  and  was  intensely  satisfied. 
"It  takes  me  out  of  myself,  at  any  rate.  It  is  new  and 
it  is  real.  I've  come  to  the  conclusion,  Mr.  Childers, 
that  I  like  real  things.  I  gorge  myself  with  the  coun- 
terfeit all  the  time,  and  I  think  I  must  suffer  from  in- 
digestion." 

"Couldn't  you  write  this  up  gorgeously?"  he  queried, 
with  a  smile. 

"I  don't  intend  to  talk  shop  to-night,"  she  declared. 
"You  needn't  try  to  lure  me  to  the  subject.  I  want  to 


86  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

forget  that  I'm  an  owl  for  this  occasion  only.     How 
very  lovely  your  cousin  is,  Mr.  Childers." 

Ivy  had  moved  away  from  the  place  she  had  last  oc- 
cupied. So  had  Arthur  Stuyvesant.  Mrs.  Hampton 
was  talking  to  the  senator,  who  had  at  last  broken 
loose  from  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  and  was 
looking  at  him  through  the  insolent  lorgnette. 

"Yes,  Ivy's  a  pretty  girl,"  Jack  Childers  replied,  "and 
a  very  nice,  good  girl." 

Sallie  waited  for  him  to  say  "I  want  you  to  meet 
her,"  but  Mr.  Childers  did  not  say  it.  She  wondered 
when  the  introduction  would  take  place,  for  she  antici- 
pated it  eagerly,  and  the  idea  of  knowing  Jack  Child- 
ers' feminine  attributes  was  very  precious  to  her. 

"I  suppose  she  was  delighted  to  come  to-night  ?"  Sal- 
lie  said  presently. 

The  managing  editor  laughed  outright.  "I  had  the 
hardest  work  to  persuade  either  of  them  to  come,"  he 
replied.  "My  cousin  goes  out  so  much  that  she  didn't 
think  this  quite  the  thing.  And  Mrs.  Hampton  failed 
to  see  why  she  should  have  to  visit  my  'shop.'  But  I 
insisted,  as  it  would  have  looked  bad  if  they  had  not 
shown  themselves.  The  chief  would  have  been  dis- 
pleased.'' 

Sallie  was  amazed.  She  could  not  understand  how 
any  well-regulated  young  girl  could  fail  to  feel  inter- 
ested in  the  spectacle  of  Jack  Childers  among  his  asso- 
ciates. 

"Your  cousin — seems  quite  young,"  she  ventured 
again,  harping  insistently  on  the  subject. 

"Yes,  she  is  young,"  he  assented.  "But  she  is — er — 
she  is — very  good  form,  and  rather  looks  down  upon 
the  newspaper  world." 

"How  strange!"  murmured  Sallie.  She  was  work- 
ing herself  up  to  a  sort  of  frenzy  of  desire  to  know  this 
girl. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  87 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "Ivy's  a  nice,  good  girl  and  very  ami- 
able. But  she  isn't  a  good  fellow  like  you  are,  and — 
she  isn't  amusing." 

"I  suppose  she  doesn't — she  doesn't  read  my  arti- 
cles?" 

Mr.  Childers  could  not  restrain  his  merriment.  "Oh, 
horror!"  he  cried.  "Never!  My  aunt  takes  good  care 
of  that.  Aunt  would  have  a  fit  if  she  thought  Ivy  in- 
dulged in  that  sort  of  literature." 

"Then  your  aunt  must  think  I'm  horrid  ?"  Her  voice 
had  sunk,  and  there  was  something  rather  pathetic  in 
the  anxiety  with  which  she  waited  for  his  reply. 

"Well — of  course,  she  doesn't  know  you,"  he  re- 
plied evasively.  "But  we  don't  cater  to  old  ladies,  do 
we?  We  endeavor  to  amuse  serious  people.  There's 
a  good  deal  in  it,  Sallie.  Only  short-sighted  people 
condemn  it  as  frivolity.  This  isn't  a  very  comic  world, 
and  the  man  or  woman  who  can  amuse,  if  even  for  a 
moment,  has  earned  gratitude  somewhere." 

He  had  called  her  "Sallie"  for  the  first  time.  As  the 
name  passed  his  lips,  she  looked  up  and  flushed.  Per- 
haps the  "cold  collation,"  in  private  view,  was  responsi- 
ble. But  the  familiarity  gave  her  a  delightfully  com- 
fortable sensation.  She  wondered  if  he  would  ever 
call  her  Miss  Sydenham  again,  and  hoped  not. 

"I  shall  have  to  drink  your  health  to-night,"  he  said, 
as  the  crowd  began  to  move  toward  the  refreshment 
enclosure.  "We  must  clink  glasses." 

"That  will  be  jolly,"  she  cried  feverishly.  "But  I 
hope  you  don't  feel  it  your  duty  to  clink  with  the  entire 
staff,  otherwise  you  will  be  a  martyr." 

He  smiled.  "I  think  I  see  myself  clinking  with 
Amelia  and  Anastasia,"  he  said.  "For  goodness'  sake, 
look  at  that  woman !"  he  added,  as  a  vision  of  Lamp- 
Post  Lucy  drinking  a  bumper  of  champagne  came 


88  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

through  the  open  door.  "We  had  better  hurry  or  we 
shall  get  none." 

They  passed  into  the  room,  which  had  grown  wild- 
ly convivial.  Sallie  looked  carefully  among  the  crowd 
to  find  Ivy  Hampton,  but  her  quest  was  unsuccessful. 
Mrs.  Hampton  was  there  with  the  senator,  to  whom 
she  was  talking  in  pompous  deliberation,  punctuated 
by  the  inevitable  lorgnette  in  its  gold-rimmed  imperti- 
nence. Sallie  almost  brushed  against  her  as  Jack  Child- 
ers  tried  to  burrow  a  path  through  the  crowd  to 
the  table,  and  the  girl  was  conscious  that  she  involun- 
tarily paused  while  in  Mrs.  Hampton's  vicinity,  waiting 
for  a  possible  introduction.  But  Jack  Childers  pushed 
her  quietly  along,  and  Mrs.  Hampton  was  soon  left  in 
the  background.  Frayed  edges  of  her  conversation 
with  the  senator  reached  Sallie.  The  fragmentary 
murmurings  sounded  like  the  incoherent  mutterings  of 
a  dream.  It  died  away  gradually,  and  Sallie  found 
herself  by  the  table  with  Jack  Childers  at  her  side.  A 
feeling  of  disappointment  and  gloom  oppressed  her, 
and  the  table,  with  its  glittering  glass,  its  huge  vases 
of  flowers  and  its  subdued  lights — Sallie  saw  a  little 
tunnel  of  leaves  through  which  a  glow  of  rosy  electric- 
ity was  felicitously  diffused — gave  her  something  of  a 
shock.  Mrs.  Hampton  had  not  even  glanced  in  her 
direction,  although  the  lorgnette  focussed  so  very  much 
that  was  going  on.  And  yet  she  had  even  felt  the  silk 
of  the  lady's  dress  as  she  brushed  by  her,  and  the  sub- 
tle perfume  of  her  hair  had  rested  for  a  moment  in  her 
nostrils.  Sallie's  sensation  of  disappointment  was  soon 
replaced  by  a  restless  discomfort.  But  she  looked  at 
Jack  Childers  as  he  stood  smiling  by  her  side,  and  she 
took  from  his  hand  the  glass  of  champagne  that  he  had 
poured  out  for  her. 

"Here's  to  you,  Sallie,"  he  said— it  was  still  "Sal- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  89 

lie,"  she  noticed — and  they  clinked.  Sallie  felt  the 
"clink"  as  it  travelled  to  her  elbow.  She  smiled  and 
sipped  the  wine,  while  Mr.  Childers  drank  unstintingly, 
and  seemed  vexed  that  the  glass  did  not  hold  more. 

"Don't  be  abstemious,"  he  said,  looking  at  Sallie's 
almost  untouched  glass.  "This  is  not  a  W.  C.  T.  U* 
meeting,  and  the  cause  of  temperance  is  eschewed  by 
the  paper  on  this  occasion.  We  shall  have  a  beautiful 
editorial  on  temperance  to-morrow — one  of  the  best 
that  McPherson  has  ever  written — but  to-night  we  will 
give  the  other  side  a  chance  to  be  heard.  Please  drink 
to  my  health." 

He  filled  his  own  glass  again  and  drained  it.  Sallie, 
with  growing  recklessness,  looked  at  him,  said  "A 
votre  sante,"  and  with  an  effort  swallowed  the  cham- 
pagne. Jack  Childers  patted  her  approvingly.  The 
room  tinkled  with  uncorked  eloquence,  and  journalistic 
decorum  evaporated  slowly  but  surely.  Happy  Hippy 
was  talking  loudly  to  her  secular  minister — who  held  a 
glass  of  pale  lemonade  to  his  lips  but  looked  longing- 
ly at  the  rakish  gilding  of  an  adjacent  champagne  bot- 
tle. Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  had  speared  a 
Christian  Scientist,  and  Sallie  heard  him  say,  as  he  took 
copious  draughts:  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  intoxi- 
cation. People  imagine  that  they  are  intoxicated,  and 
this  fact  working  upon  their  nerves  produces  that  con- 
dition known  as — known  as — " 

"I  believe  they  call  it  a  jag,"  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg 
Hutchinson  whispered  sweetly.  Sometimes  corre- 
spondents wrote  to  her  for  effective  means  of  combat- 
ing "the  day  after." 

Anastasia  Atwood  sat  breathing  heavily  upon  an  im- 
mature young  author,  whose  ambition  was  to  be  called 
the  Zola  of  America,  and  who  had  just  emitted  a  chub- 
by book  called  "Theodore  the  Thug,"  which  Charlie 


90  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Covington  had  described  as  splendidly  realistic.  Anas- 
tasia,  whose  use  of  champagne  as  anti-swoon  medicine 
was  not  permitted  to  "count,"  was  now  partaking  of 
it  for  mere  pleasure.  Her  little  fat  husband  had  again 
been  sent  away  to  play,  and  was  playing  furiously  with 
a  lissome  Gaiety  dancer  who  had  been  divorced  four 
times.  (Their  game  was  apparently  to  see  how  many 
champagne  glasses  they  could  knock  over.  He  was 
leading.) 

Sallie  heard  the  pale  poetess — who  was  not  quite  as 
pale  as  usual — say :  "I  have  written  many  poems  on 
wine,  Mr.  Underbrush.  It  is  a  charming  subject,  and 
— he!  he! — I  don't  wonder  that  it  is  popular,  because 
so  many  words  rhyme  with  it.  Think  of  the  list.  It 
is  most  inspiring.  Vine — twine — nine — pine — thine — 
kine — line — shine — fine — mine — " 

"And  feminine — viperine — asinine,"  added  Mr.  Un- 
derbrush. 

"He!  he! — yes,"  simpered  Anastasia.  "It  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  mere  sound  has  nothing  to  do  with 
poetry.  It  is  everything.  Sometimes,  Mr.  Under- 
brush," with  a  vinous  whisper,  "sometimes  I  don't 
mind  what  my  poems  mean,  as  long  as  they — er — tickle 
the  ear.  He !  he !" 

Sallie  felt  that  the  wine  was  going  to  her  head.  She 
was  flushed  and  dizzy.  The  room  moved  slightly,  and 
in  the  little  tunnel  of  leaves  the  red  electric  lights 
peered  at  her  like  eyes.  She  saw  old  Tomlinson  trying 
to  clink  with  himself — he  stood  in  a  corner  and  held 
a  glass  in  each  hand — and  she  felt  that  little  Robinson 
was  looking  at  her.  She  liked  this  good-natured  little 
boy,  and  beckoned  to  him  to  come  to  her.  When  he 
stood  by  her  side,  she  asked  Jack  Childers  to  give  him 
some  champagne,  held  up  her  own  glass,  and  suggested 
a  toast.  But  little  Robinson  looked  at  her  quietly 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  91 

and  began  to  talk  to  Mr.  Childers.  The  toast  was  not 
drunk,  and  Sajlie  wondered  why.  Little  Robinson 
offered  her  his  arm,  and  as  Jack  Childers  showed  no 
desire  to  move  away,  he  led  her  quietly  into  the  adjoin- 
ing room,  now  comparatively  empty. 

As  soon  as  Sallie  had  left,  Charlie  Covington  sud- 
denly appeared,  and,  ploughing  his  way  through  the 
crowd,  joined  Mr.  Childers  and  shook  hands  with  him. 

"Everything  is  going  along  admirably,  Jack,"  said 
Mr.  Covington.  "This  is  festive,  and  no  mistake.  Say, 
old  man,  have  you  introduced  Miss  Sydenham  to  Mrs. 
and  Miss  Hampton?  I  think  they  would  rather  enjoy 
knowing  her.  Don't  you  think  so?" 

His  hand  was  rather  unsteady  as  he  placed  it  upon 
Jack  Childers'  shoulder.  The  managing  editor  had 
been  somewhat  aimlessly  watching  Sallie's  exit  with 
little  Robinson. 

"Introduce  Miss  Sydenham  to  Mrs.  and  Miss  Hamp- 
ton ?"  he  repeated  thickly.  "What  on  earth  for  ?  Sal- 
lie  would  hate  them,  and — well,  Charlie,  old  man — 
you  know  how  strait-laced  they  are." 

Charlie  Covington  with  the  tip  of  his  first  finger 
drew  a  round  on  the  table-cloth,  and  then — went  over  it 
again — and  again — and  again. 

Then  he  said  slowly:  "I  think  you're  wrong,  old 
chap.  Sallie  wouldn't  hate  them  at  all.  You  don't 
know  her.  She'd  like  to  know  them.  I  don't  think 
that  she  has  spoken  to  a  woman  to-night.  And  I'm 
sure  Mrs.  Hampton  and  your  cousin  would  be  glad  to 
meet  anybody  with  whom  you  are  friendly." 

Jack  Childers  coughed.  The  expression  on  his  face 
was  a  strange  combination  of  embarrassment  and 
champagne. 

"See  here,"  he  said — and  he  had  the  discretion  to 
sink  his  voice  to  a  whisper — "I — I  really  couldn't  intro- 


92  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

duce  Sallie  to-night.  She  is  so  atrociously  over- 
dressed, and — and — well,  while  you  and  I  don't  mind — 
frankly,  Charlie,  I  prefer  the  unconventional — still, 
Aunt  Sarah  and  Ivy  would  be  furious.  I  should  never 
hear  the  last  of  it.  You  know,  they  both  hated  to  come, 
and  it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  I  prevailed 
upon  them  to  do  so.  So,  you  see,  if  I  took  Miss  Syden- 
ham  up  to  them  just  now — decked  out  as  she  is — I 
should  be — er — rather  putting  my  foot  in  it,  don't  you 
think?" 

A  brick-red  flush  colored  Mr.  Covington's  face ;  but 
he  made  an  effort  to  suppress  the  anger  that  was 
rising.  He  knew  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  truth 
in  his  friend's  words ;  but  it  was  selfish  and  rather  hu- 
miliating truth,  the  expression  of  which  was  not  quite 
necessary. 

With  a  successful  injection  of  calmness  into  his 
voice,  he  said :  "Your  aunt,  I  am  sure,  is  a  kind  and 
a  courteous  woman,  while  your  cousin,  who  is  at  pres- 
ent talking  to  Arthur  Stuyvesant  on  the  balcony,  can 
have  no  excuse  for  refusing.  Sallie  may  be  a  reckless 
young  person,  but  Mr.  Stuyvesant — well — er — you 
know  what  he  is." 

Mr.  Childers  poured  out  another  glass  of  champagne 
and  drank  it.  "What  a  serious  fellow  you  are,  Char- 
lie," he  said  good-naturedly.  "What  pains  you  take 
to  embroider  logic  upon  your  themes.  You're  right, 
and  I  know  you're  right,  and  I'm  glad  you're  right. 
I'm  always  glad  when  anybody's  right.  I  didn't  know 
Ivy  had  ever  met  Stuyvesant;  but  she  is  one  of  those 
inveterate  matinee  girls  who  plaster  their  mantel-pieces 
with  photographs  of  those  strutting  fools.  I  dare  say 
somebody  has  introduced  her  to  this  beauty  to-night. 
Why  not?  But  I'm  glad  I  was  not  the  somebody. 
Why,  if  I  had  suggested  it,  I  believe  she  would  have 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


93 


withered  me  with  a  glance.  But  I'm  glad  to  see  that 
she  is  human  enough  to  want  the  introduction,  for 
sometimes,  Charlie,  her  touch-me-not  manner  gets  on 
my  nerves.  But  I  can't  go  up  to  her,  tear  her  away 
from  Stuyvesant,  and  say:  'I've  seen  you  talking  to 
that  reprobate,  so  you've  got  to  know  Miss  Sydenham.' 
Can  I,  Charlie?" 

Mr.  Covington  flushed  again.  "It  is  not  necessary 
even  to  think  of  them  as  in  the  same  category,"  he  re- 
marked, with  another  effort  at  repression.  "Take  a 
tip  from  me,  Jack.  Go  and  find  Sallie  and  introduce 
her  to  your  aunt  and  cousin.  You  like  her,  and  it 
would  please  her." 

"It  would  not  please  her,"  Mr.  Childers  retorted.  "I 
know  Sallie,  and  she  dislikes  staid,  matter-of-fact,  con- 
ventional people.  Besides,  I  can't  do  it.  It  isn't  nec- 
essary. I  am  not  obliged  to  introduce  the  staff  to  my 
own  relatives.  Please  drop  the  subject.  It  is  silly." 

'"But  you  like  Sallie  Sydenham?"  Mr.  Covington 
was  conscious  of  a  dull,  dogged  persistence  that  in- 
fected his  tones. 

"I  do.  I  like  her  immensely.  She  is  a  jolly  good 
fellow,  and  we  have  just  clinked  glasses.  I'm  not  go- 
ing to  worry  her  to-night  by  inflicting  my  relatives 
upon  her.  You  seem  determined  to  festoon  Sallie  with 
women,  and  she  doesn't  want  them." 

Charlie  Covington  did  not  trust  himself  to  discuss 
the  matter  further.  Jack  Childers  was  perfectly  hon- 
est ;  indeed,  there  was  no  breach  of  loyalty  in  his  treat- 
ment of  Sallie.  According  to  the  managing  editor's 
inexorable  logic,  there  was  really  no  reason  why  the 
girl  should  be  foisted  unwillingly  upon  a  couple  of 
women  who  were  not  at  all  anxious  for  the  honor. 
Moreover,  there  was  nothing  to  show  that  Jack  Child- 
ers had  the  slightest  interest  in  Miss  Sydenham  apart 


94  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

from  the  exigencies  of  the  office,  and  the  fraternal  in- 
tercourse that  this  association  rendered  necessary,  and 
at  the  same  time — perhaps — pleasant.  It  was  useless 
dwelling  upon  the  subject  further,  as  far  as  Mr.  Child- 
ers  was  concerned. 

Mr.  Covington  glanced  into  the  room  where  Sallie 
had  gone.  He  could  see  her  laughing  and  talking  with 
little  Robinson.  Her  face  was  flushed  with  a  tint  red- 
der than  the  rouge  that  besmeared  it,  and  there  was  an 
unusual  nervousness  in  her  manner.  Occasionally  she 
looked  back  into  the  refreshment  enclosure  that  she 
had  left,  and  her  eyes  had  rested  upon  him  while  he 
talked  with  Mr.  Childers.  He  had  noticed  that,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  discussion.  An  immense  pity  for  this 
girl  swept  into  his  heart,  and  a  fervid  desire  to  help 
her,  in  spite  of  herself,  took  possession  of  him.  He  had 
an  ardent  belief  in  the  innate  femininity*  of  her  nature, 
encrusted  though  it  might  be  with  the  rude,  unpretty 
devices  of  rather  rampant  Bohemianism.  He  noted  the 
aloofness  of  the  women  as  they  passed  her,  and  ana- 
lyzed the  various  looks — a  compound  of  jealousy  and 
contempt — that  were  cast  upon  her  by  the  ladies  pres- 
ent. Her  sister-workers,  he  particularly  observed,  made 
a  point  of  staring  stonily  at  her,  and  of  perking  up  their 
heads  as  they  went  by.  They  made  comments  upon 
her  to  their  companions,  and  it  irritated  him  to  think 
that  Sallie  had  been  impolitic  enough  to  persistently 
antagonize  them.  A  woman,  opposed  by  her  own  co- 
workers,  cuts  a  sorry  figure  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  do 
not  appreciate  the  niceties  of  the  situation.  It  would 
have  been  a  satisfaction  to  see  Sallie  in  conversation 
with  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  or  Lamp-Post 
Lucy.  Still,  he  could  scarcely  expect  them  to  bob  up 
as  chaperones  when  Miss  Sydenham  made  merry  at 
their  expense  on  all  occasions.  He  saw  her  very  soon 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  95 

surrounded  again  by  a  circle  of  actors,  authors,  and 
cheap  politicians,  all  anxious  to  chat  with  her  and  sam- 
ple for  themselves  the  airy  moods  that  read  so  well  in 
print.  But  he  knew  that  Sallie's  salvation  was  im- 
perilled by  just  these  careless,  flippant  attentions.  He 
realized  that  sensuality,  selfishness,  and  curiosity  were 
the  forces  that  drew  these  men  into  that  encircling 
fringe  around  the  girl. 

Mr.  Covington  knew  Mrs.  Hampton  slightly.  He 
had  met  her  once  or  twice,  and  he  had  admired  her  as 
very  "good  form."  They  had  talked  books  together, 
and  as  Charlie  was  a  perfectly  colorless  journalist,  who 
had  never  expressed  an  opinion  in  print,  he  was  re- 
ceived in  any  "set."  Mr.  Covington  was  swayed  by 
a  sudden  impulse,  and  he  did  not  allow  himself  to  rea- 
son about  it.  He  marched  straight  up  to  Mrs.  Hamp- 
ton, who  had  just  dismissed  her  senator,  saluted  her 
gracefully,  and  took  the  plunge. 

"May  I  introduce  Miss  Sydenham  to  you  ?"  he  asked, 
rushing  at  his  subject.  "You  know  of  her,  of  course. 
She  is  an  awfully  bright  girl,  Mrs.  Hampton,  and  I 
think  you  would  enjoy  knowing  her.  May  I  go  and 
find  her?" 

The  gold-rimmed  lorgnettes  that  had  been  hanging 
limply  at  the  lady's  side  were  at  once  called  into  service. 
Mrs.  Hampton's  eyes,  from  which  a  kindly  courteous- 
ness  had  shone,  were  suddenly  seen  through  the  awe- 
inspiring  glasses — gray  and  cold. 

"Really,  Mr.  Covington,"  she  said,  "I — I  do  not  un- 
derstand you." 

"I  want  to  introduce  you  to  Miss  Sydenham" — very 
staccato. 

"To  that  vulgar  girl  who  writes  disreputable  things 
about  plays  ?  To  that  woman  in  the  make-up  and  the 
horrible  dress?  Really,  Mr.  Covington  ...  do  you 
mean  it?" 


96  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"Assuredly  I  do,"  replied  the  young  man.  "Please, 
Mrs.  Hampton." 

"Not  for  the  world,"  said  the  lady,  decidedly.  "I 
flatter  myself  I  have  done  my  duty.  I  very  much  dis- 
like this  kind  of  thing.  I  have  already  had  enough  of 
it — and  Ivy  and  I  must  be  going  home.  Where  is  Ivy  ? 
I  could  not  be  seen  talking  to  this  atrocious-looking 
young  woman,  Mr.  Covington.  She  may  be  a  clever 
journalist — as  clever  journalism  goes  to-day.  And 
I  may  add  that  in  my  day  she  would  have  been  too 
outre  for  the  Police  Gazette.  But  I  really  have  not 
the  force  to  cope  with  these  modern  innovations. 
Where  is  Ivy,  I  wonder?  I  must  find  her.  These 
crowds  are  very  trying.  Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Cov- 
ington? Jack  quite  put  himself  out,  when  I  tried  to 
cry  off.  So  I  made  a  martyr  of  myself.  One  can  be 
a  martyr  for  a  few  hours,  can't  one?  And  I'm  very 
fond  of  Jack.  He  is  a  dear  boy,  and  so  kind  to  Ivy. 
I  wonder  where  Ivy  is?  Ah,  Mr.  Underbrush,  how 
do  you  do?  I  read  the  book  you  sent  me.  Thanks, 
immensely.  Good-night,  Mr.  Covington." 

She  moved  away  voluminously  stately,  the  gold- 
rimmed  lorgnettes  still  framing  her  eyes.  Charlie  Cov- 
ington bit  his  lip,  and  tasted  blood.  He  had  played 
rather  a  bold  game  that  might  have  succeeded,  for 
there  are  certain  women  to  whom  sheer  audacity  is  not 
displeasing.  But  the  game  had  failed.  He  looked  into 
the  next  room.  Sallie  was  still  there.  He  saw  her  look 
up  as  Mrs.  Hampton  entered,  towed  by  the  proud  au- 
thor of  "Theodore  the  Thug."  He  watched  her  move 
slowly  forward,  as  though  to  compel  Mrs.  Hampton's 
attention.  Then  he  heard  her  prattling  lightly  to  little 
Robinson,  the  reporter. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

UT  on  the  balcony,  her  temples  fanned  by  a 
small,  reluctant  breeze  that  erred  vagrantly 
through  City  Hall  Park,  stood  Ivy  Hampton, 
wisps  of  her  silver-gold  hair  dancing  lightly 
from  the  release  of  a  jewelled  comb  as  she  leaned  upon 
the  granite  supports  of  Owldom's  majestic  retreat. 
The  tinkle  of  a  herd  of  street-cars  reaching  destination 
and  starting  again  on  their  long,  thin  journey  to  Man- 
hattan end  smote  her  ears,  as  did  the  grinding  cer- 
tainty of  the  adjacent  elevated  roads. 

Her  attitude  no  longer  suggested  the  ingenuous,  for 
as  she  turned  toward  the  dark-haired,  thick-set,  ag- 
gressively virile  young  man  by  her  side,  the  glints  in 
her  gray  eyes  shone  like  the  fires  in  an  opal.  The 
conventions — dozens  of  them,  in  assorted  sizes  and 
grades — lurked  in  the  rooms  behind  her,  from  which 
convivial  sounds  issued,  and  in  which,  as  frequently 
happened,  when  she  turned  her  small  and  neatly-poised 
head,  she  could  see  the  forms  of  Owldom's  visitors 
flitting  in  all  directions,  in  ghostly  noiselessness. 

The  rather  pensive  maidenhood,  in  its  cool,  thin  sug- 
gestions, that  had  appealed  to  Sallie  Sydenham  when 
she  saw  Miss  Hampton  standing  in  lissome  indiffer- 
ence by  her  mother's  side,  had  vanished.  A  furtive 
warmth  had  replaced  it.  The  girl's  bosom  rose  and 
fell  in  quicker  rhythm  than  that  which  is  usually  in- 
spired by  mere  virginal  apathy,  and  the  concentration 
of  her  eyes  upon  the  street  below  was  somewhat  unduly 
tense.  For  the  street  below  was  cold,  and  gray,  and 
empty,  and  listless,  as  it  stretched  before  her,  striped 


98  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

with  its  gleaming  car-tracks  into  the  shadows  and  noc- 
turnal restlessness  of  the  Bowery. 

Miss  Hampton's  attitude  might  have  been  mistaken 
for  one  of  fatigue,  by  those  who  could  not  see  the  fitful, 
opal  lights  in  her  still,  pool-like  drab  eyes.  She  wore 
a  thin  gray  dress,  and  as  her  elbows  rested  on  the  para- 
pet, her  cloak  fell  from  her  figure  in  shadowy  undula- 
tions, and 'the  perfection  of  that  figure  was  revealed. 
The  waist  was  slight  and  charming,  and  the  fullness  of 
the  bust  symmetrical.  Earlier  in  the  evening,  when 
Miss  Hampton  had  stood  erect  and  on  guard  by  the 
flank  of  the  chaperone,  that  figure  had  seemed  replete 
with  the  vague  immaturity  of  transparent  girlhood. 
But  now  it  spoke  of  a  certain  womanhood,  palpitant 
and  ripe,  eager  and  unmistakable. 

Arthur  Stuyvesant,  following  the  direction  of  her 
eyes,  saw  the  chill,  dim  park,  with  its  feathery  trees 
and  its  dark,  weird  shapes,  and — following  them  still — 
saw  also  the  cold,  empty,  gray,  and  listless  street, 
striped  with  tracks,  on  its  quick  iron  way  to  the  Bow- 
ery. He  preferred  the  quiet,  nearly  motionless  figure 
beside  him.  It  was  neither  cold  nor  gray,  nor  listless 
nor  empty. 

"Ivy,"  he  murmured  softly,  and  he  touched  her  elbow 
upon  the  cool  granite  balcony. 

"You  see  I  came,"  she  said,  not  looking  at  him,  but  at 
a  red  Bowery  car  that  thumped  toward  the  Post  Office. 
"I  had  to  come.  This  was  an  occasion  from  which  I 
might  and  should  have  stayed  away.  I  tried,  but 
couldn't.  I  came." 

Mn  Stuyvesant  watched  her  face,  averted  from  his 
own,  and  noticed  the  young,  admirable  angles  of  her 
features — the  slight  facial  angularity  of  immaturity, 
of  which,  as  a  connoisseur,  he  never  tired. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  come,"  he  said  quickly.     "I 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  99 

could  not  have  seen  you  for  days,  as  I  go  to 
Washington  to-morrow  for  one  long,  tiresome,  unend- 
ing week.  So  I  wanted  you  here  to-night.  Why  not  ? 
What  risk  can  there  be  ?  On  these  occasions  one  may 
talk  to  anybody.  A  cat  might  talk  to  a  king,  if  it  had 
the  gift  of  language." 

"I  suppose  I  am  the  cat,"  retorted  the  girl.  "Well, 
I  feel  like  one — just  a  furtive,  stealthy,  velvety  thing, 
always  purring  until — until  it  gets  out  to  the  balcony, 
when  it  can  display  its  claws — and  live." 

He  was  silent — not  from  the  psychological  fitness  of 
silence  at  that  moment,  but  because  he  was  not  quite 
sure  what  particular  style  of  remark  would  be  har- 
monious. Then  quickly,  with  a  woman's  craving  to 
hear  a  man  say  the  banal  thing  she  loves,  she  asked: 
"Are  you  really  glad  I  came?" 

He  tipped  the  banal  answer  from  his  lips,  and  it 
cheered  her.  "You  know  I  am,  Ivy.  How  can  you 
even  ask  it?  Don't  you  know — " 

She  interrupted  him,  but  raised  her  pool-like  gray 
eyes,  now  all  disturbed  and  moving  with  the  opal 
glints,  to  his  face.  "Yes — I  know,  I  know,"  she  said 
impatiently.  "But  it  is  all  so  horribly  difficult.  You 
are  an  actor,  and  you  act  during  certain  hours  only; 
and  it  is  your  work,  for  which  you  are  paid.  But  I  am 
an  actress — acting  all  the  time — all  the  time  except 
when  I  am  with  you ;  and  it  is  not  my  work,  and  I  am 
not  paid — except  in  discomfort  and  distress.  I  must 
play  the  pensive,  guileless  maiden  through  the  dull 
and  dreary  day.  I  am  a  dear  little  unsophisticated 
thing  to  my  easily  deluded  step-mother.  I  am  a  pretty 
little  bit  of  marble  to  my  cousin  Jack.  It  is  acting — all 
acting.  For  when  I  am  with  you,  I  live,  and  I  am 
not—" 

"Not  marble."      Arthur  Stuyvesant  smiled,  with  a 


ioo  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

sense  of  his  own  irresistible  powers,  which  he  loved 
to  attribute  to  a  hypnotic  faculty.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  prefer  to  call  sensuality  by  that  much-abused 
and  cleverly  misinterpreted  possibility.  He  moved 
towards  her  and  put  his  arm  round  the  slim  waist,  from 
which  the  cloak  fell  in  its  shadowy  undulations.  "Not 
precisely,  Ivy.  Not  precisely  marble.  I  think  I  have 
discovered  the  real  Ivy,  eh  ?  I  think  I  detached  it  from 
its  clinging  walls,  eh?  Do  you  regret  it?  Tell  me, 
dearest  ?" 

"Regret  ?"  she  exclaimed  contemptuously.  "Never ! 
I  suppose  I'm  a  thoroughbred — with  the  wrong  sort 
of  thoroughness.  But  I'm  jealous,  hatefully  jealous, 
of  you.  I  hate  to  think  of  your  wife.  It  makes  me 
sick  to  remember  her.  When  I  do  so  I  feel  that  I  am 
not  quite  so  thorough,  for  I  see  the  spots  on  my  own 
soul.  I  suppose" — with  a  laugh — "that  awful-looking 
girl,  Sallie  Sydenham,  who  guyed  you  so  fearfully 
that,  if  I  had  dared,  I  would  have  requested  Jack  to  dis- 
charge her,  and  who  writes  as  recklessly  as  any  French 
novelist — I  suppose  that  she  is  an  angel  compared 
with  me.  She  barks,  and  I  bite.  She  is  on  the 
surface,  and  I  am  deep-down.  Nobody  would  care 
to  know  her,  yet  they  all  swarm  around  me.  Isn't 
it  odd?  But  I'm  thankful  it  is  so.  I  am  getting 
gradually  used  to  it  all,  you  know;  but  when  I  am 
out  of  sorts  I  am  unpleasant.  I  should  like  to  sail 
smoothly,  not  because  it  would  be  right,  but  merely 
easier." 

She  paused,  breathless.  The  breeze  came  gustily 
across  the  dormant  park,  and  the  wisps  of  her  silver- 
gold  hair  fluttered.  The  noise  of  heavy  wagons  jolting 
over  the  uneven  pavements  came  to  them  in  muf- 
fled roar.  They  were  alone,  but  the  world  was  somno- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  101 

lently  alive  below  them.  It  made  her  think  of  the 
world  in  Owldom's  rooms,  which  was  nearer. 

"You  are  morbid,"  he  whispered,  glancing  in  at  the 
windows,  through  which  shapes  still  flitted. 

"One  of  these  days,"  she  said,  also  in  low  tones,  "the 
worst  will  happen,  and  I  shall  have  to  marry  Jack.  I 
know  it.  Mrs.  Hampton  is  always  hinting  at  such  a 
possibility;  and  sometimes  I  think  that  Mr.  Childers 
looks  upon  it  as  tacitly  settled.  The  idea  makes  me 
ill,  though  I  am  schooling  myself  admirably,  and  there 
are  times  when  I  can  contemplate  anything.  Of 
course,  I  like  Jack  as  a  cousin,  but  in  any  other  role — " 
She  closed  her  eyes,  and  a  perpendicular  furrow  trav- 
elled quickly  between  her  yellow  eyebrows.  "It  would 
be  the  last  straw,  wouldn't  it,  Arthur, — you  with  a  wife, 
I  with  a  husband." 

Mr.  Stuyvesant  stifled  a  smile.  The  situation  was 
one  in  which  he  had  frequently  appeared  on  the  stage. 
It  was  a  favorite  situation  in  the  "drawing-room"  com- 
edies that  trickle  into  cesspools,  and  are  sometimes 
guided  by  the  master-hand  of  a  Pinero. 

"We  won't  look  so  far  into  the  future,"  he  said. 
"The  present  is  not  so  awfully  bad,  and  we  may  as  well 
make  the  most  of  it.  My  wife — " 

"Your  wife,"  repeated  Ivy,  her  eyes  wide. 

"My  wife  is  a  good  soul,  and — and"  (he  was  going 
to  say,  "She  has  forgiven  me  fifty  times  before,"  but 
checked  himself  in  time,  and  said)  "she  thinks  I  am 
perfection.  There  is  no  need  to  worry  about  any- 
thing. Take  life  easily,  Ivy.  Don't  let  us  cross 
our  bridges  until  we  get  to  them." 

"You'll  always  care  for  me?"  she  cried  impulsively. 
Again  she  felt  the  odd,  feminine  need  of  a  banal  ques- 
tion that  must  give  birth  to  a  banal  answer.  And 


102  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

again  she  felt  cheered  when  that  answer  immediately 
came.  Like  a  child  to  whom  the  best-known  story  is 
the  story  best  loved,  she  waited  for  an  inevitable  re- 
sponse, and  was  comforted  by  it. 

The  shapes  in  the  brilliantly  lighted  rooms,  sil- 
houetted on  the  amber  blinds,  seemed  to  flit  closer  to 
them.  She  left  his  side,  pushed  aside  the  tawny  shade, 
and  stepped  into  the  clamorous  apartment,  wrapped 
once  again  in  the  gray  veil  of  her  Puritanism.  Silently 
and  with  slowly  measured  steps  she  gained  the  crowd, 
smiling  colorlessly  at  an  acquaintance  or  two.  The 
opal  light  had  gone  from  her  eyes,  and  they  were  the 
mere  gray  pools  in  which  were  mirrored  an  ingenuous 
soul.  The  wisps  of  her  hair,  unstirred  now  by  any 
breeze,  arranged  themselves  in  neat  precision  along  the 
nape  of  her  neck,  as  though  they  too  had  a  role  to  play. 
So  might  Priscilla  have  stood,  no  more  unruffled  or  ner- , 
vously  alert. 

Sallie  Sydenham,  chatting  aimlessly  with  the  faithful 
little  Robinson,  saw  her  enter,  and  waited — waited  for 
the  other.  Into  her  keenly  perceptive  little  soul  had 
crept  the  wraith  of  a  doubt.  She  saw  Miss  Hampton's 
two  entities  at  once — they  were  flashed  upon  her  almost 
simultaneously — so  that  she  had  no  more  faith  in  the 
one  than  in  the  other.  She  was  watching  them  both 
in  their  unconscious  differentiation.  So  she  waited 
for  Miss  Hampton's  companion.  But  there  was  ap- 
parently no  companion,  and  Sallie  saw  the  tall,  lithe, 
indolent  form  of  the  girl  passing  down  the  room. 
Miss  Sydenham  was  perplexed,  but  not  uncomfortably 
so.  In  her  solitude — for  her  tete-a-tete  with  little  Rob- 
inson was  scarcely  more  than  solitude — she  had  dis- 
covered the  duet  on  the  balcony.  And  while  she  sat 
anxiously  expectant  of  the  coveted  introduction  that 
had  not  been  given  her,  she  had  found  herself  wonder- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  103 

ing  what  this  pensive,  high-bred  girl  could  have  in 
common  with  an  actor  whose  repute  was  that  usually 
ascribed  to  Arthur  Stuyvesant. 

She  rose,  and  leaving  little  Robinson  in  the  midst  of 
a  glowing  panegyric  on  the  magnificent  after-dinner 
eloquence  of  the  popular  senator — who  had  once  risen 
from  his  bed  at  three  in  the  morning  to  give  Mr.  Rob- 
inson an  impassioned  description  of  a  dinner-dress  that 
the  senatorial  wife  had  worn  that  evening — Sallie  pro- 
ceeded to  the  window.  She  would  have  been  almost 
justified  in  imagining  that  she  must  have  been  mis- 
taken. It  would  have  been  easy  to  have  ascribed  the 
tcte-a-tete  to  a  mere  brain  fantasy.  Miss  Hampton 
might  have  been  taking  a  little  air  on  her  own  solitary 
account.  A  strange  impulse — something,  perhaps, 
that  leaked  into  the  future — told  her  to  try  and  believe 
this.  But  Sallie  was  too  practically  engrossed  with 
the  present.  She  pushed  the  blind  aside  and  stepped 
out.  Her  dazzled  eyes,  greeted  with  the  swift  dark- 
ness that  hung,  pall-like,  around,  could  at  first  distin- 
guish nothing.  But  they  persevered,  and  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  was  discovered  just  about  to  return  to  the 
multitude — by  another  window. 

"Good-evening,  Mr.  Stuyvesant,"  said  Sallie,  as  he 
stopped,  in  the  apparent  belief  that  Miss  Hampton  had 
returned.  "I'm  not  here  to  criticize  to-night;  but — 
won't  you  take  cold  ?  You  have  been  out  a  long  time, 
and — you've  no  hat." 

Mr.  Stuyvesant  was  not  disconcerted  for  long.  He 
was  not  at  all  fond  of  Miss  Sydenham,  who  had  so  fre- 
quently held  him  up  to  ridicule.  But  his  policy  was 
invariably  to  use  his  own  personality  for  all  that  it  was 
worth,  when  in  contact  with  either  friend  or  foe ;  and, 
although  Sallie  scarcely  belonged  to  either  category, 
she  was  probably  as  susceptible  as  the  rest — when  she 


104  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

was  off  guard,  and  off  duty.  Moreover,  even  a  flippant 
little  penny-a-liner  (to  the  actor's  mind  all  journalists 
are  penny-a-liners)  must  be  impressed  by  Stuyvesant's 
personal  charms. 

"It's  a  lovely  evening,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said, 
"and  I've  been  enjoying  the  air.  I  hate  a  crowd  and 
a  stifling  room,  don't  you  ?" 

"I  wasn't  aware  that  you  knew  Miss  Hampton,"  she 
remarked,  ignoring  side  issues  and  lunging  at  her  sub- 
ject. 

"One  of  my  matinee  girls,"  he  declared,  laughing. 
"I  know  'em  all,  Miss  Sydenham,  more  or  less,  al- 
though— in  print — you  always  wonder  what  they  see  in 
me.  Sometimes  I  wonder,  too,  don't  you  know  ?  Par- 
ticularly when  I'm  in  a  modest  mood.  Still,  they  are 
my  stock  in  trade,  and  if  they  fancy  they  like  me,  I 
must  humor  them.  I  really  must,  you  know.  Let  me 
see,  didn't  you  say  last  week  that  I  had  a  face  like  a 
pie — or  was  it  a  pudding?  I  really  can't  quite  remem- 
ber which,  but  I  know  it  was  something  that  came  after 
meat.  Well,  you  know,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  prove  to 
you  that  others  don't  think  so,  or  that,  if  they  do,  they 
like  pie  and  pudding." 

"But  you  do  know  Miss  Hampton?"  she  asked  qui- 
etly. 

"Know  her  ?  Oh,  I  won't  go  so  far  as  that.  I  have 
met  her  once  or  twice.  Very  nice  girl — rather  quiet 
and  sedate,  and  unsophisticated,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing.  But  I  rather  like  that  style,  as  it  is  so  unusual 
nowadays.  Where  have  you  been  all  evening,  Miss 
Sydenham  ?  I  haven't  seen  you  before." 

Sallie  walked  to  the  parapet,  and  leaned  her  elbows 
upon  it,  just  as  Ivy  Hampton  had  done.  Arthur  Stuy- 
vesant  saw  the  attitude  and  recognized  it ;  but  he  also 
saw  that  Sallie's  waist  was  not  a  symmetrical  quality, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  105 

and  that  no  cloak  fell  from  her  shoulders  in  shadowy 
undulations.  This,  however,  would  not  have  disturbed 
him  in  the  least,  for  Sallie  was  a  woman,  and  to  Mr. 
Stuyvesant,  the  sex — any  of  it  under  forty — was  .  .  . 
the  sex.  There  was,  however,  something  in  her  man- 
ner that  pushed  such  ideas  away  from  him. 

"See  here,  Mr.  Stuyvesant,"  she  said  deliberately, 
"you  are  a  very  bad  actor.  I  tell  you  that  to  your  face, 
although  I  have  merely  hinted  at  it  playfully  in  print, 
for  I  thought  you  were  too  bad  to  take  seriously.  But, 
if  you  don't  play  square,  if  you  try  and  foist  your  pre- 
cious theatrical  personality  upon  a  girl  like  Miss 
Hampton — she  is  the  cousin  of  my  managing  editor, 
Mr.  Jack  Childers,  if  you  please — I'll  roast  you  until 
you  are  the  laughing-stock  of  the  town.  I'll  ridicule 
you,  pull  you  to  pieces,  show  you  up,  dissect  you  until 
you  will  wish  that  you  had  never  been  born.  I  can 
do  it,  you  know.  I'm  not  malicious — in  print — but  I 
shall  take  particular  delight  in  doing  something  in  that 
direction  for  your  own  especial  benefit.  Go  it — if  you 
like — with  your  matinee  girls,  but  leave  Miss  Hamp- 
ton out  of  it." 

"What  do  you  know  of  Miss  Hampton?"  he  asked 
sullenly,  a  flush  on  his  face,  as  he  realized  that  he  was 
now  dealing  with  a  woman  to  whom  his  generally  effi- 
cacious personality  made  no  appeal. 

"Nothing,"  she  replied ;  and  a  tinge  of  sadness  crept 
into  her  voice  as  she  realized  how  absolutely  true  that 
statement  was,  and  how  events  pointed  to  the  proba- 
bility that  it  would  remain  true.  "I  have  never  met 
her ;  but  she  is  Jack  Childers'  cousin,  and  she  is  a  lady 
— not  a  matinee  girl,"  she  added,  with  emphasis. 

Mr.  Stuyvesant  bit  his  lip,  for  a  grim  smile,  that  it 
was  hard  to  check,  suggested  itself. 

"You  fancy  that  you  are  an  excellent  judge  of  wo- 


io6  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

men?"  he  asked,  repressing  an  intonation  that  he  felt 
would  sound  sardonic. 

Sallie  smiled.  "Not  necessarily,"  she  said.  "I  have 
told  you  that  I  do  not  know  Miss  Hampton.  I  am, 
therefore,  considering  general  principles  only.  I  trust, 
Mr.  Stuyvesant,  that — er — your  wife  is  well?" 

The  actor  fought  against  a  flush  of  chagrin,  the  dawn 
of  which  he  felt  beneath  his  skin.  This  was  a  danger- 
ous young  woman,  who  meant  business,  and  who  ap- 
parently was  not  quite  so  flippant  as  her  surface-meas- 
ure indicated.  He  had  schooled  himself  carefully, 
however,  in  the  suppression  of  all  sorts  of  emotion  off 
the  stage.  He  was  quite  prepared  for  Miss  Syden- 
ham  by  the  time  he  spoke  again. 

"She  is  well,  I  thank  you,"  he  said.  "She  would 
have  accompanied  me  here  to-night,  but — well,  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant  is  a  domesticated  little  woman,  who  loves 
her  home,  and  hates  to  leave  it.  She  takes  her  pleasure 
in  sewing  and  cooking.  Not  your  style,  eh,  Miss  Syd- 
enham  ?" 

"Not  precisely,"  Sallie  replied ;  but  she  was  conscious 
at  that  moment  that  it  was  extremely  irritating  to  be 
irreparably  "classed,"  at  sight,  by  good  men  and  by  bad 
men,  by  friends  and  by  foes.  She  appealed  to  them 
all  in  the  same  way.  She  tried  to  do  so — but  it  would 
have  been  agreeable  to  slip  from  the  eternal  pose  at 
times.  She  began  to  wish,  as  this  fat  actor  stood  be- 
fore her,  that  she  could  cook  and  sew.  There  were 
worse  occupations  to  be  found,  she  supposed.  Were 
the  foolish  creatures  in  Owldom  at  that  moment — un- 
sexed  women,  barren  matrons,  petticoats  aping  the 
bifurcation  of  trousers — any  more  essential  to  the  gen- 
eral scheme  of  things  than  little  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  sur- 
rounded by  her  household  gods,  and  living  a  deluded 
•  wif ehood  to  the  best  of  her  ability  ? 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  107 

They  left  the  balcony  and  entered  Owldom  together. 
The  large  room  was  slowly  emptying  itself,  and  con- 
viviality was  slackening  its  pace.  Mrs.  Hampton  had 
just  captured  Ivy  and  was  preparing  to  beat  a  retreat. 
Jack  Childers  stood  with  his  aunt  and  cousin,  talking 
rather  nonchalantly.  Sallie  heard  him  say  to  Ivy: 
"Fancy  you  thawing.  I  hear  that  you  were  positively 
talking  with  Stuyvesant,  the  actor.  How  did  you  un- 
bend sufficiently  to  submit  to  an  introduction  ?" 

He  turned,  and  at  that  moment  Arthur  Stuyvesant 
and  Sallie  Sydenham  passed  them.  A  faint  surprise 
was  reflected  in  Ivy  Hampton's  eyes  as  she,  too,  no- 
ticed the  promenade ;  but  the  surprise  vanished  quickly. 

In  her  cold,  prim,  unemotional  tones,  she  said :  "My 
dear  Jack,  you  made  me  come  here,  and  I  have  been  in- 
troduced to  various  people.  I'm  sorry  that  Mr.  Stuy- 
vesant was  among  them,  now  that  I  see  him  with  that 
terrible-looking  person  in  the  old  blue  dress.  It  is 
Miss  Sydenham,  is  it  not,  Jack  ?  Don't  you  think  that, 
as  managing  editor,  you  could  prevail  upon  her  to 
cover  up  her  shoulders  and  to  use  a  little  less  rouge? 
Really,  she  looks  positively  rowdy  and  rakish,  doesn't 
she,  mamma?" 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Hampton  answered,  with  the  ready 
lorgnette  raised  on  duty.  "By  the  bye,  Jack,  I  must 
tell  you  what  happened.  Your  friend,  Mr.  Covington, 
rather  a  nice  young  man — quite  a  respectable  person 
for  journalism — wanted  to  insist  upon  introducing  me 
to  that  girl — Miss  Sydenham.  I  thought  it  most  in- 
opportune, and  impertinent,  and  disrespectful." 

"So  you  refused  ?"  asked  Jack  Childers,  with  a  smile. 
"I  thought  you  would.  Covington  spoke  to  me  about 
it,  and  I  knew  your  sentiments.  I  had  no  idea  that 
he  was  so  determined  as  to  tackle  you  himself.  But 
I'm  quite  sure  that  Miss  Sydenham  herself  knew  noth- 


io8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ing  of  this,"  with  a  laugh.  "You  wouldn't  be  her  style 
at  all." 

"Probably  not,"  assented  Ivy,  with  her  Priscilla 
mien.  "Let  us  hope  not.  Are  you  coming,  mamma? 
Jack,  just  put  us  into  a  hansom  and  we  won't  bother 
you  any  more.  You  will  naturally  wish  to  stay  to  the 
bitter  end." 

Sallie  left  Arthur  Stuyvesant  to  his  own  devices  after 
entering  the  room.  She  had  no  desire  to  parade 
in  his  vicinity,  for,  as  she  did  not  belong  to  the  class  of 
sensual  women  known  as  "matinee  girls,"  he  was 
rather  disgusting  to  her.  Sallie  understood  the  aver- 
age "matinee  girl,"  and  mentally  placed  her  side  by 
side  with  the  vacuous  youths  to  whom  the  playhouse 
means  anatomical  display.  Perhaps  Ivy  Hampton  had 
known  the  ignominy  of  matinee  girl  moments.  But 
she  did  not  look  the  character  at  all.  Was  it  possible 
that  beneath  that  gray  pictorial  innocence  there  were 
"dark  blue  depths"  ? 

The  girl  felt  inclined  to  wish  that  she  had  remained 
away  from  this  "celebration."  Her  head  ached,  and  a 
horrible  sense  of  loneliness — a  painful  feeling  of  soli- 
tude in  a  crowd — oppressed  her.  She  saw  the  depar- 
ture of  Ivy  and  Mrs.  Hampton,  with  Jack  in  tow,  and 
she  knew  that  her  cherished  desire  would  not  be  real- 
ized. Mr.  Childers  evidently  did  not  want  her  to  meet 
his  people,  and  she  wondered  why.  Was  it  because 
she  was  so  badly  dressed?  Was  this  perpetual  strug- 
gle for  the  unusual — in  her  writing,  in  her  manner,  in 
her  attire — to  be  the  undoing  of  all  her  plans  for  sim- 
ple, genuine  pleasure? 

She  looked  at  the  feminine  owls,  bunched  together 
at  the  end  of  the  room,  apparently  watching  her  intent- 
ly, yet  as  soon  as  she  looked  in  their  direction,  disre- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


109 


garding  her  glances  quickly.  Well,  she  was  glad  of 
it.  "Cats !"  she  said  to  herself.  "I  don't  want  them. 
I  couldn't  stand  them  for  five  minutes,  singly  or  col- 
lectively. I  must  be  a  trifle  upset  even  to  think  of  such 
a  hateful  possibility." 

She  looked  up,  and  saw  Charlie  Covington  coming 
towards  her.  His  face  was  pale  and  tired,  and  its  care- 
streaks  appeared  to  her  unusually  gray  and  indented. 
The  man  was  young,  but  the  man's  mood  was  old,  and 
the  mood  dominated  his  appearance.  Mr.  Covington 
smiled  at  her,  and  she  was  conscious  of  a  strenuous 
desire  to  be  flippant  and  careless.  This  was  her  way 
out  of  all  difficulties.  Her  detestation  of  serious  mo- 
ments led  her  always  to  strange  extremes.  Sallie 
looked  upon  "the  emotional"  as  the  acme  of  flagrant 
enormity. 

"Where  have  you  been  all  evening,  Charlie?"  she 
asked,  the  words  that  she  tried  to  send  forward  so 
quickly,  rattling  in  her  throat.  "You  have  avoided  me 
most  studiously,  and  as  I  haven't  written  anything  to 
offend  your  sense  of  propriety  for  at  least  three  hours, 
I  can't  understand  it." 

"It  has  been  a  dull  evening,"  he  said,  rather  vi- 
ciously. 

"Do  you  think  so  ?" — with  a  little,  light  laugh.  "I 
have  rather  enjoyed  it.  It  has  not  been  wild  dissipa- 
tion. Certainly  it  has  not  been  the  pace  that  kills — 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  But  we  have  seen  and  been 
seen.  We  are  dressed  for  the  fray." 

"You  are,"  he  retorted  emphatically,  with  his  eyes 
on  her  low-cut  bodice,  and  her  dress  faded,  faked  to- 
gether, frippe. 

Sallie  looked  at  him  anxiously.  She  felt  certain, 
from  his  tone,  that  he  hated  her  attire ;  but  she  did  not 


no  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

believe  that  this  was  due  to  its  inappropriate  gaudiness 
and  its  tousled  inelegance.  She  thought  that  she  was 
too  gay  for  this  solemn  young  masculine.  He  would 
have  preferred  to  see  her  in  black  alpaca,  high  to  the 
throat,  relieved — as  are  the  costumes  of  the  penitent 
Magdalens  in  modern  romance — by  a  ruching  of 
"priceless  lace"  round  the  neck. 

"You  don't  like  it?"  she  asked  indifferently. 

"No,"  he  answered  grimly,  "I  do  not.  Sallie,  you 
are  an  intelligent  girl,  but  you  do  not  seem  to  be  able 
to  distinguish  between  the  decorous  and  the  indecor- 
ous. You  are  eternally  inappropriate — a  square  peg  in 
a  round  situation.  You  come  here  to-night  dressed 
for  a  bal  masque — the  masque  only  lacking — while 
every  other  woman  wears  sedate,  unremarkable  gowns. 
I  hate  to  see  you  perpetually  spotted  out  in  an  unen- 
viable way.  Why  do  you  do  this,  Sallie?  Is  it  be- 
cause you  must,  perforce,  be  unique  ?  Don't  you  know 
that  to  be  unique  is  to  be  fearfully  and  awfully 
lonely?" 

Charlie  Covington  spluttered  in  his  earnestness.  He 
had  seen  her  pitiful  plight  all  evening,  and  to  him  it 
was  a  tragedy.  This  girl,  with  a  heart  of  gold,  had  at- 
tracted the  gaudy  attention  of  the  men ;  but  not  a  wo- 
man had  seen  her  without  contempt  and  derision  in  her 
eyes.  Mr.  Covington  was  too  old-fashioned  to  re- 
gard this  as  a  tribute  to  Miss  Sydenham's  charms. 

"I  am  not  awfully  lonely,"  she  cried — and  the  lie 
made  her  lips  tingle — "and  if  I'm  not  popular  with  the 
old  frumps  here  to-night,  I'm  glad  of  it — yes,  I'm  glad 
of  it.  I  suppose  you  think  I  ought  to  plaster  down  my 
hair,  part  it  in  the  middle,  and  hang  a  curl  over  each 
ear.  Then — to  be  quite  the  lady — you'd  like  to  see  me 
in  a  neat  serge  gown,  with  a  wide  white  collar  round 
my  neck.  And — to  be  feminine — I  ought  to  feel  chilly, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  in 

and  drape  a  white  worsted  shawl  over  my  shoulders. 
Oh,  I  know  the  sort  of  woman  you  like,  Charlie.  I 
hate  her.  If  I  looked  that  sort  of  a  fright,  every  petti- 
coat present  would  be  hovering  around  me.  The 
Amelias  and  the  Anastasias  would  simply  hang  upon 
my  skirts,  because  I  should  look  more  hideous  than 
they  do — if  possible  (and  could  it  be  possible?)  I  am 
here  to-night  in  my  best  clothes — my  only  clothes.  I'm 
not  rich,  but  I'm  satisfied  with  what  I  have.  I  may 
be  intelligent,  as  you  so  kindly  suggest — and  thanks, 
awfully — but  I  can't  see  that  I'm  committing  any  crime 
because  I  don't  look  like  the  others.  I  make  more 
money  than  they  do,  anyway — and — and — that's  all  I 
care  about." 

Sallie  paused,  her  period  of  defiance  over.  She  felt 
that  defiance  was  a  weapon,  effective  enough  in  its  way ; 
but  Charlie  Covington  was  her  friend,  after  all,  and  her 
thrusts  were  aimed  at  mere  loyalty. 

"That  is  not  quite  all,  Sallie,"  he  said  gently.  "Not 
quite  all.  I  should  have  liked  to  see  you  sought  out  to- 
night— as  such  a  clever  girl  should  be  sought  out — by 
some  of  the  ladies  here.  No,  I  do  not  refer  to  the 
journalists.  I  dislike  them  quite  as  much  as  you  do. 
The  attention  of  a  few  rowdy  men  means  nothing. 
They  would  give  their  attention  to  anything  a  little  bit 
outre.  The  women  count.  I  should  have  wished  you 
to  meet — " 

"Whom?"  Sallie  asked,  quickly  rebellious. 

He  did  not  like  to  tell  her  that  Mrs.  Hampton  and 
Ivy  would  have  been  useful  for  her  to  know.  If  he 
did,  he  would  be  impelled  to  explain  that  he  had  at- 
tempted to  effect  an  introduction,  and  had  failed. 

"Whom  would  you  have  wished  me  to  meet?"  she 
persisted — daring  him. 

He  was  silent. 


H2  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"Oh,  I  can  guess,"  she  said  lightly.  "You  mean 
Mrs.  Hampton.  Well,  evidently  Mr.  Childers  did  not 
second  your  wish.  It  was  not  at  all  necessary.  Mrs. 
Hampton  can  scarcely  be  expected  to  worry  herself 
with  all  her  nephew's  subordinates.  Then,  I  am  afraid" 
— with  a  smile — "that  Miss  Hampton  is  not  my  style." 

"Why  not?"  he  asked,  aggressive  for  her  sake.  "She 
is  a  gentlewoman — a  quiet,  exclusive,  high-bred  girl. 
Why  should  she  not  be  your  style?  She  unbent  to- 
night. Why,  I  saw  her  talking  to  Arthur  Stuyvesant ! 
I  confess  that  I  was  a  little  surprised." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,"  replied  Mr.  Covington,  embarrassed,  for  he 
hated  to  speak  ill  even  of  those  who  invited  an  illness 
of  allusion.  "His  reputation  is — er — rather  shady." 

"While  mine  merely — er — looks  shady  ?"  she  retorted, 
with  a  tinge  of  bitterness.  "Well,  that  makes  all  the 
difference.  I  am  intelligent  enough — you  admitted 
my  intelligence,  Charlie,  thanks — to  know  it.  The  per- 
son who  is  shady,  but  who  doesn't  look  it,  is  much 
more  popular  than  the  person  who  looks  it,  but  who 
isn't  it.  Don't  you  think  so?  Perhaps  I'm  a  failure. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  better  if  I  settled  down  to  a  pit- 
tance and  devoted  my  life  to  the  'household  column' — 
receipts  for  pickling  cabbage,  making  cranberry  sauce, 
and  jams.  And  I  could  dress  to  suit  the  part." 

"You  did  not  enjoy  yourself  to-night,"  he  said  slow- 
ly. "Own  up,  Sallie." 

"I  did — I  did,"  she  exclaimed.  "I  enjoyed  it  hugely. 
But  you  come  and  spoil  my  pleasure,  and  tell  me  things 
that  I  don't  want  to  hear — and  wet-blanket  everything. 
It  is  a  nuisance.  I  won't  have  it.  Good-night,  Mr. 
Covington.  Good-night." 

"I  intend  to  see  you  home,"  he  said  doggedly,  though 
a  trifle  unnerved. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  113 

"Thank  you,  but  I  am  not  going  home  just  at  pres- 
ent ;  and  when  I  go  I  shall  not  trouble  you." 

She  left  him,  planted  there,  and  went  to  the  cloak- 
room, where  she  slowly  donned  her  coat,  hat  and 
gloves.  She  was  indignant,  and  was  pleased  to  vent 
her  spleen  upon  poor  loyal  old  Charlie.  She  had  been 
a  dismal  failure,  and  if  the  will  to  obtain  what  one  most 
wishes  signified  anything  at  all,  hers  had  been  noto- 
riously unsuccessful. 

Jack  Childers  had  evidently  decided  that  it  was  not 
fitting  she  should  be  introduced  to  his  aunt  and  cousin. 
Why?  She  did  not  know.  She  was  good  enough  to 
be  his  comrade,  his  jester,  his  light- mooded  friend. 
And  Sallie  marvelled  that  a  man  of  the  world,  who 
made  no  pretense  of  disguising  his  interest  in  a  girl, 
should  keep  her  for  one  side  of  his  life  only.  She  had 
no  right  to  feel  vexed.  Mr.  Childers  was  her  "boss," 
and  she  was  not  justified  in  resenting  anything  he  did 
— unless,  perchance,  he  ...  reduced  her  salary. 

Still,  she  felt  humiliated,  annoyed,  sore  at  heart 
She  could  not  afford  to  "pay  him  out ;"  but  she  would 
be  less  amiable  to  him,  less  ready  to  conform  to  his 
moods,  more  unwilling  to  pose  as  the  jester  that  light- 
ened his  hours  of  toil.  If  he  did  not  need  her  when 
he  was  at  his  pleasures — well,  she  would  make  herself 
scarce  on  all  occasions. 

And  nothing — no,  nothing  on  earth — positively,  ab- 
solutely nothing — should  ever  induce  her  to  ride  up- 
town with  him  again  after  office  hours.  She  would 
show  him  that  she  had  a  little  pride.  If  he  came  to 
her  and  said  "Miss  Sydenham"  (he  had  called  her  Sal- 
lie  one  hour  ago.  Perhaps  it  was  too  familiar),  "I  beg 
you  to  ride  uptown  with  me.  Please,  please  do" — she 
would  say,  "Thank  you,  Mr.  Childers,  not  to-night." 


H4  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

She  buttoned  her  long  coat  slowly,  speared  a  pin 
through  her  hat,  and  drew  on  her  gloves. 

Mr.  Childers  appeared  at  the  door  and  smiled  at  her. 
He  wore  his  overcoat,  and  held  his  hat  in  his  hand. 

"I  am  waiting  for  you,"  he  said.-  -"Thank  goodness, 
it's  over.  Let's  ride  uptown,  talk  it  all  over,  and  ham- 
mer the  whole  horrid  crowd." 

And  all  she  said  was :  "I  am  ready." 

Eternal  comedy  of  woman — comedy  that  is  tragedy. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ALLIE  plunged  again  into  Owldom's  ceaseless, 
goal-less  whirl — a  whirl  that  slowly  steals  the 
vitality  from  strong  men,  making  of  them 
soulless,  gripless  automata.  She  threw  her- 
self into  a  struggle  that  saps  the  vigor  and  paralyzes 
the  energies.  She  consented  to  be  squeezed  in  the 
gigantic,  resistless  owl-machines ;  for  she  did  not  know 
that  when  the  machines  had  dredged  every  drop  of 
originality  from  her  intellect  they  would  cast  her  aside 
— an  orange-pulp,  with  its  juices  gone,  an  apple-skin 
forgotten  in  a  barrel  of  cider,  a  grape  that  has  given  its 
life-principle  to  a  promising  vintage,  a  skeleton  de- 
nuded of  all  that  differentiates  it  from  other  skeletons. 

Into  the  safe,  usurious  grasp  of  the  owls  she  gave  all 
her  capital — her  brain — and  the  owls  paid  her  interest 
at  conventional  rates,  reserving  all  conditions  unto 
themselves  with  logic  that  was  unanswerable,  skilled 
reasoning  against  which  the  proudest,  most  eloquent 
lawyers  in  the  land  would  be  powerless.  Like  the  other 
owls,  she  rushed  blindly  onward,  shedding  her  sub- 
stance as  she  went,  and  tending — nowhere.  For  Owl- 
dom  has  no  limits  or  boundaries.  Its  votaries  are  con- 
demned, like  the  Wandering  Jew,  to  perpetual  peregri- 
nation. The  owls  never  "get  there,"  for  there  is  no 
"there."  Owldom,  like  a  circle,  is  a  symbol  of  eternity, 
for  the  "finis"  to  its  swirling  chapter  is  never  written. 

She  was  satisfied  with  the  elusive,  will-o'-the-wisp 
glories  that  surrounded  her.  She  ate  ravenously  of 
Dead  Sea  fruit,  and  never  noticed  the  ashes  that  it  left 
in  her  mouth.  Completely  ostracized  from  the  soci- 
ety of  her  human  fellows — owls  to  the  right  of  her, 


n6  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

owls  to  the  left  of  her — she  viewed  the  world  from  one 
point  of  view — a  view  that  makes  of  the  noblest  and  the 
best,  as  well  as  of  the  saddest  and  the  worst,  just  so 
much  "copy."  She  knew  that  there  were  a  few  owls 
that  still  reserved  their  reasoning  powers,  and  were  ex- 
empt from  the  general  verdict,  and  she  flattered  herself 
that  she  was  among  them.  Most  owls  delude  them- 
selves in  this  way. 

"I  could  quit  it  all  in  a  moment,"  she  would  say  to 
herself  at  times,  when  in  the  darkness  of  the  night 
haunting  spectres  of  relentless  things  that  she  had  writ- 
ten— base,  taunting  gnomes  conjured  up  by  the  aban- 
don of  her  pen — would  stand  by  her  sleepless  bed- 
side and  menace  her  with  threatening  fingers.  "I  could 
quit  it  all  in  a  moment.  Perhaps  I  will  some  day. 
I  am  young.  When  I  am  older,  it  will  be  time  enough 
to  sew  and  cook.  Besides,  I  am  not  a  womanly  wo- 
man. There  is  a  masculine  streak  in  me,  and  I  must 
do  a  man's  work  for  a  man's  remuneration." 

She  tried  to  realize  that  these  spectres  and  gnomes, 
that  took  shape  after  days  of  fatigue,  were  in  no  way 
veridical  or  objective,  but  merely  the  result  of  an  over- 
taxed brain,  which  was  perhaps  true.  The  flippant 
badinage  of  her  style  suggested  an  inspired  facility,  and 
Sallie  never  sought  to  disturb  the  suggestion.  In 
reality  it  was  due  to  unremitting  discipline,  to  an  un- 
bending determination,  to  a  grim  resolution  to  escape 
at  all  hazards  from  blue  moods,  physical  prostration, 
and  the  influences  of  the  moment.  It  was  the  hardest 
thing  of  all  to  do,  and  nobody  knew  it.  But  she  was 
well  paid  for  it,  and  she  did  not  repine.  She  earned 
more  money  than  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  wo- 
men, even  if  she  gave  an  exorbitant  quid  pro  quo. 

She  played  her  game  well,  both  on  and  off  the  stage 
(or  at  least  she  thought  so),  for  she  had  become  a 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  117 

distinct  character  in  Owldom.  She  despised  the  aver- 
age feminine  owl — usually  sterile  of  all  originality,  or 
preaching  unnecessary  lessons  to  unnecessary  people 
with  the  whine  of  repentant  Magdalens.  She  sought 
to  be  something  quite  different,  and  she  had  succeeded 
beyond  her  rosiest  hopes.  The  enmity  of  her  sister 
owls  afforded  her  keen  satisfaction  (sometimes),  as 
it  was  the  loftiest  tribute  that  could  have  been  paid  to 
her  efforts  to  originate  a  difference.  The  careless  cor- 
diality of  the  male  birds  was  generally  sweet  to  her — 
for  the  same  reason.  Whatever  her  reputation  might 
be,  she  still  remained  a  woman,  even  though  it  were  a 
woman  of  the  wrong  sort.  Her  idea  was  not  to  pass 
unnoticed  in  the  general  swirl,  but  to  live  up  to  her 
work,  which  was  unique. 

The  first  "little  rift  within  the  lute"  had  made  itself 
felt  at  the  owls'  reception.  The  man  for  whose  friend- 
ship she  would  have  cast  herself  still  further  adrift, 
for  whose  cherished  and  healing  comradeship  she 
would  have  braved  any  dangers,  had  not  seen  fit  to  pre- 
sent her  to  the  women  who  presided  over  his  home.  It 
was  the  unkindest  cut  of  all,  and  yet — and  yet — 
it  was  eminently  logical.  What  had  she  to  do  with  the 
inner  life  of  the  owls?  Why  should  she  believe  that 
the  qualities  that  endeared  her  to  Newspaper  Row  were 
of  the  faintest  avail  outside  of  it?  She  could  not  eat 
a  pie  and  have  a  pie — a  species  of  jugglery  that  had 
never  yet  been  known  to  succeed. 

Still,  it  was  bitter  to  know  that  she  was  just  a  jour- 
nalistic comrade  and  nothing  more — that  she  began 
and  ended  in  Owldom's  territory — that  where  she  made 
her  exit,  Ivy  Hampton  perhaps  achieved  an  entrance 
that  was  of  more  durable  account  and  of  finer  in- 
trinsic value.  When  the  horrid  spectres  and  taunting 
gnomes  that  materialized  in  the  shadowy  solitude  of 


n8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

her  room  bent  over  her,  they  seemed  to  tell  her  that  she 
stood  on  shifting  quicksands,  and  that  whatever 
she  did  mattered  little  in  the  long  run. 

The  spectres  and  gnomes,  with  grins  of  malice, 
would  raise  to  her  eyes  a  shining  vision.  She  would 
see  Jack  Childers,  shaking  off  the  thraldom  of  Owl- 
dom  in  his  own  discreet  and  elegantly  appointed  home. 
And  as  he  entered — perhaps  he  had  just  left  her  after 
the  coveted  ride  uptown — Ivy,  her  luminous  golden 
hair  shimmering  round  her  pale  and  delicately  outlined 
face,  would  meet  him  and  bid  him  welcome.  And  they 
would  talk  far  into  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  on 
topics  of  human  concern  and  beauty.  There  would  be 
none  of  the  jargon  of  Owldom  in  their  converse,  no  ill- 
natured  comments,  crude  jests,  and  epigrammatic  stu- 
pidity. She  could  see  him  wrenching  himself  free  from 
the  souvenirs  of  the  day.  And  she,  herself,  was  one 
of  those  souvenirs,  the  last  to  cling  to  him  before  he 
entered  those  placid  domestic  portals. 

It  was  a  soul-disturbing  vision,  and  the  spectres  and 
gnomes  capered  gleefully  around  her  as  they  held  up 
the  curtain,  and  allowed  her  to  look.  They  grouped 
themselves  around  her  and  watched  her  face  as  she 
gazed  into  the  gauzy  depths  of  the  picture.  And  then 
she  would  feel  how  hopelessly  she  was  shut  out  of  this 
real  life,  and  what  a  base  imitation  of  the  unalloyed 
thing  was  her  Owldom's  intercourse.  Foolishly,  as  she 
lay  there  in  the  thick  shadows,  she  would  strain  her 
ears,  in  the  belief  that  the  vision  was  set  to  words  and 
that  she  would  hear  what  Jack  and  Ivy  were  saying. 

Before  she  slept,  the  utter  selfishness  of  her  mood 
would  be  realized.  Why  should  she  rebel,  like  a  dog 
in  the  manger,  at  her  cherished  comrade's  happiness? 
Merely  because  she  could  not  see  it.  How  gladly 
would  she  have  welcomed  an  introduction  to  his  home 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  119 

women,  and  what  a  joy  it  would  have  been  to  her  to 
watch  these  domestic  pictures  from  a  privileged  view- 
point. But  he  had  willed  it  otherwise,  and  she  was 
shut  out.  And  then  she  would  fall  asleep,  to  awake 
and  laugh  at  herself.  The  labors  of  Owldom  were  cer- 
tainly prostrating. 

After  one  of  these  distressing  nights,  Sallie  was  blithe 
to  the  point  of  desperation.  She  would  go  to  the  office, 
and  convulse  the  entire  establishment  with  her  reck- 
lessness and  irreverence.  She  would  stay  there  until 
her  theatre  began,  dreading  the  solitude  of  her  apart- 
ment, and  the  sympathy  of  her  colored  maid.  She 
would  insist  upon  afternoon  tea  in  the  owls'  pet  base- 
ment, known  as  "Hitchcock's,"  and  would  drink  from 
an  inch-thick  cup  as  daintily  as  though  it  were  finest 
Dresden.  She  would  partake  of  heavy,  stodgy  cakes, 
aptly  called  "sinkers"  by  the  owls,  and  saturate  them 
with  a  yellow  oil  masquerading  as  butter. 

She  would  peep  into  the  sanctum  occupied  by  the 
freckle-remover,  the  poetess,  the  society  butterfly,  and 
the  other  perfect  ladies  of  the  nest,  and  withdraw 
quickly,  as  infuriated  glances  were  cast  at  her.  Once 
she  sent  them  an  invitation  to  tea  in  sheer  deviltry,  and 
received  a  crushing  note  of  regret  signed  by  each  of 
the  votaries. 

On  these  occasions  Mr.  Childers  would  take  her  to 
Mouquin's  to  dinner,  and  she  would  sit  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  cookshop,  and  talk  to  him  as  though  her 
very  soul  were  in  her  lips.  She  was  happy  if  by  any 
chance  Anastasia,  or  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  or 
Rita  Eisenstein,  detained  by  stress  of  work,  sat  near 
her.  It  amused  her  to  watch  their  by-play.  It  was 
as  good  as  a  farce — better  than  a  good  many  that  a 
cruel  fate  compelled  her  to  see — to  notice  their  smil- 
ing, servile  salutation  of  Mr.  Childers  while  they  glar- 


120  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ingly  ignored  her,  his  companion.  This  appealed  to 
Sallie's  notions  of  the  ridiculous,  for  there  was  no  mal- 
ice in  her  nature. 

Once,  at  one  of  these  dinners,  Sallie  saw  Anastasia 
Atwood,  tired  after  working  all  afternoon  on  a  poem 
called  "Ah!  If  I  Could  Fly!"  (that  was  the  refrain), 
sitting  alone  at  an  adjoining  table.  The  poetess  looked 
ineffably  weary,  and  Sallie  forgot  her  dislike  of  the 
woman,  in  her  sympathy  for  the  fagged  owl. 

"Do  you  mind  if  I  ask  her  to  join  us?"  she  queried  of 
Jack  Childers. 

Mr.  Childers  minded  very  much  indeed,  and  said  so, 
suggesting  at  the  same  time  that,  as  Anastasia  seemed 
so  fervidly  anxious  to  fly,  it  would  be  as  well  for  her 
to  realize  that  now  was  her  cue.  Let  her  fly. 

"I'm  not  sorry  for  her,"  he  said.  "She  has  a  hus- 
band. Why  doesn't  she  stay  at  home  and  mend  his 
socks?" 

Sallie  laughed.  "The  husbands  of  ladies  who  write," 
she  said,  "wear  socks  that  are  warranted  never  to  de- 
velop holes.  But  that  is  not  the  point.  The  poor 
thing  looks  fagged  out,  and  I  know — I  feel  it  in  my 
bones — that  she  will  treat  herself  to  a  glass  of  water. 
In  the  interest  of  the  office  she  needs  Burgundy." 

Jack  Childers  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Would  you 
be  sitting  at  a  table  in  a  masculine  restaurant,  all  by 
yourself,  if  you  had  a  husband,  Sallie?"  (He  had 
never  returned  to  the  formal  "Miss  Sydenham.") 

"Not  I,"  she  answered  quickly.  "If  I  only  owned 
somebody  who  would  bring  me  in  my  rent  every  month, 
you  would  never  see  me  in  this  region  of  the  city  again. 
The  woman  who  invented  earning  her  own  living 
ought  to  be  compelled  to  do  that,  and  nothing  else,  all 
through  eternity." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  121 

"You  really  don't  mean  what  you  say  ?"  He  seemed 
quite  vexed. 

"Honor  bright,"  laughed  Sallie.  "Of  course  I  do. 
Women  were  never  meant  to  pay  rent.  It  is  the  only 
outlay  that  worries  me.  I  hate  it.  I  keep  my  rent  in  an 
old  vase,  which  I  use  for  nothing  else,  and  as  soon  as 
the  time  comes — if  it  ever  comes — when  Miss  Syden- 
ham  can  say  ta-ta  to  pen  and  ink,  she  will  break  that 
vase  into  a  thousand  pieces — not  one  less  than  a  thou- 
sand. It  is  a  very  handsome  old  vase,  but  I  detest  the 
sight  of  it.  It  always  seems  to  say  to  me,  'Fifty  dollars 
a  month,  please,  in  advance.'  " 

"Still,  you  like  to  be  independent?" 

"I  don't.  I  am  obliged  to  be  independent,  but  I 
don't  like  it.  The  girl  who  earns  her  own  living  is  an 
anomaly.  Every  Jack  should  labor  for  a  Jill"  (she 
blushed  as  she  remembered  that  his  name  was  Jack,  and 
hurried  on),  "and  if  there  are  too  many  Jills  in  the 
world  they  should  go  to  Salt  Lake  City.  I've  no  pa- 
tience with  girls  who  pretend  that  they  like  working 
and  are  quite  satisfied  with  their  lot.  They  may  have 
to  do  it,  but  they  can't  like  it.  There  is  nothing  to  like 
in  it.  Besides,  we  were  meant  to  do  nothing  of  the 
sort.  I'm  sure  of  that.  Everything  points  to  it. 
But,"  rapidly  changing  the  subject,  "I'm  going  to  ask 
Mrs.  Atwood  to  join  us,  whether  you  like  it  or  not. 
Now,  don't  rebel.  We'll  have  the  poetess,  and  perhaps 
she'll  regale  us  with  a  poem  au  gratin,  or  a  juicy  dog- 
gerel a  la  maitre  d' hotel.  Poor  thing !" 

She  flew  off,  and  approached  the  table  where  the 
pallid  lady  of  the  rhymes  sat  gazing  into  the  future, 
and  also  into  the  kitchen.  Anastasia  looked  as  though 
she  were  awaiting  either  inspiration,  or  soup,  or  both. 

"Good-evening,"  said  Sallie,  nodding  familiarly,  in 


122  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

order  to  make  the  overture  easy.  "Won't  you  come 
and  sit  at  our  table  and  be  sociable?  We  are  fellow 
sufferers,  and  on  this  occasion  we  might  acknowledge 
our  kinship,  don't  you  think?" 

Anastasia's  eyes  fixed  themselves  glassily  upon  the 
intruder.  Sallie  thought  that  they  looked  exactly  like 
cat's  eyes,  but  not  as  nice. 

"I  prefer  to  be  alone,"  declared  the  poetess,  rigidly. 
"If  I  did  not,  I  have  my  husband." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  Sallie  assented.  "But  he  is  not  here. 
Come  and  sit  with  us,  and  time  will  pass  more  quickly. 
Mr.  Childers — er — begged  me  to  invite  you." 

"Nay,"  quoth  the  poetess,  lugubriously.  "Nay.  If 
Mr.  Childers  had  needed  me,  he  could  have  asked  me 
himself.  I  should  be  in  the  way.  Moreover,  I  have  or- 
dered my  dinner,  and  while  I  eat  I  am  always  compos- 
ing." 

"Or  decomposing,"  thought  Sallie.  The  cold,  in- 
sulting demeanor  of  the  lady  of  the  rhymes  did  not  dis- 
turb her.  Still,  she  was  not  prepared  for  these  glances 
of  irreparable  hostility.  She  thought  she  was  doing 
a  graceful  thing,  for,  at  any  rate,  she  was  doing  it  out 
of  the  goodness  of  her  heart ;  but  Anastasia  was  inex- 
orably hostile. 

"Come,"  cried  Sallie,  pleadingly,  for  through  it  all 
Anastasia's  haggard  face  touched  her,  and  she  would 
gladly  have  overthrown  the  barriers  that  separated  her 
from  the  misguided  lady.  "Come.  It  will  do  us  all 
good,  and  to-morrow  we  needn't  remember  it." 

"I  have  said,"  returned  the  poetess,  imperiously,  "and 
that  is  enough.  I  do  not  favor  revelry  in  any  shape  or 
form.  I  am  an  ascetic.  Besides" — and  here  she  sank  her 
voice  so  that  it  was  almost  inaudible — "I  do  not  coun- 
tenance this  so-called  Bohemianism.  I  do  not  like  to 
see  a  young  woman  dining  at  a  table  with  a  man  who 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  123 

is  not,  and  who  has  no  intention  of  becoming  her  hus- 
band." 

The  malice  in  the  poetess's  sunken  voice  was  unmis- 
takable, and  Sallie  recoiled.  Anastasia  had  shown  her 
claws,  which  were  never  very  aptly  sheathed,  and  the 
exhibition  was  somewhat  discouraging. 

"But  in  your  case,"  added  Anastasia,  as  a  parting 
shot  (and  she  treasured  up  her  words  to  repeat  to  Mrs. 
Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  Happy 
Hippy,  Rita  Eisenstein,  and  the  others),  "in  your  case 
it  does  not  matter  much,  for  you  are  living  up  to  the 
theories  that  you  set  forth,  I  am  told,  in  your  criti- 
cisms. I  do  not  approve  of  them." 

Sallie  had  a  glowing  retort — one  that  would  have 
pulverized  Mrs.  Atwood — on  the  outside  edge  of  her 
lips,  but  she  refrained  from  uttering  it.  After  all, 
what  did  it  matter  ?  She  had  been  willing  to  set  aside 
her  own  antipathy  to  the  poetess ;  but  it  did  not  follow 
that  the  poetess  was  bound  to  adopt  the  same  course. 
They  had  never  exchanged  a  friendly  word.  Why 
should  Sallie  believe  that,  at  her  mere  bidding,  Anas- 
tasia would  accept  this  unsought  invitation  ?  And  her 
anger  gave  way  to  the  alarming  suggestions  of  sym- 
pathy that  had  instigated  her  action.  She  pitied  the 
poor  thing  who  threw  aside  the  claims  of  home  and 
husband  to  sit  there,  sallow,  solitary,  and  spent,  for  the 
sake  of  the  silly  concave  myth  called  "reputation." 

She  returned  to  Jack  Childers,  who  was  endeavoring 
to  bisect  a  Chateaubriand  steak.  He  gave  a  sigh  of  re- 
lief when  he  saw  that  she  was  unaccompanied. 

''She  is  aweary,  weary,  and  she  cometh  not,  she  appar- 
ently said,"  he  murmured  as  the  bisection  was  success- 
fully achieved.  "I  was  afraid  she  would  come  and  eat 
this  all  up,  and  perhaps  ask  for  more.  Poets  are  always 
hungry,  I've  heard.  Metre  needs  meat,  they  tell  me." 


124  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Sallie  ate  her  food  in  silence.  Certainly  women 
hated  her — women  of  any  class  had  no  use  whatsoever 
for  her,  and  it  was  of  no  avail  trying  to  coax  them. 

"Why  are  you  so  silent  ?"  he  asked. 

"I  was  thinking,"  she  said,  "how  unpopular  I  am 
with  my  sex.  If  you  had  been  alone,  Anastasia  would 
have  gladly  joined  you.  I  am  the  bone  of  contention. 
Women  despise  me.  Sometimes  I  don't  care  (and  I'm 
glad  the  women  in  the  office  hate  me — yes,  glad)  ;  but 
other  women.  .  .  ." 

"What  other  women?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  replied  wearily,  for  a  sud- 
den fatigue  had  fallen  upon  her  and  the  pleasure  of 
her  tete-a-tete  meal  was  marred.  "There  might  be  wo- 
men whom  I  should  like  to  know,  but  who  wouldn't 
like  to  know  me." 

Mr.  Childers  smiled.  The  moods  of  this  girl  enter- 
tained him,  for  they  followed  each  other  so  swiftly,  and 
they  were  so  adorably  unreasonable.  Sallie  was  not 
the  sort  of  girl  to  captivate  her  own  sex,  and  he  felt 
that  in  her  heart  of  hearts  she  had  no  desire  to  do  so. 
The  thought  of  her  in  companionship  with  Ivy  Hamp- 
ton was  too  ridiculous  even  to  enjoy,  and  he  wondered 
how  ten  minutes  of  his  aunt  would  agree  with  her.  Be- 
ing a  man,  he  naturally  believed  in  the  all-sufficiency 
of  masculine  friendship — if  he  bothered  about  believ- 
ing anything  at  all.  And  as  he  did  not  view  Miss  Syd- 
enham  altruistically,  as  did  Charlie  Covington,  he  could 
not  pretend  a  sympathy  with  a  mock-heroic  situation. 

So  Sallie  finished  her  dinner  and  went  to  the  theatre, 
and  saw  a  farce,  "adapted  from  the  French,"  full  of  un- 
faithful husbands  and  henpecking  wives,  and  situa- 
tions with  double,  triple,  and  quadruple  meanings.  And 
she  "did  it  up"  in  her  best  style,  sparkling  with  quaint 
epigram  and  unconventional  ideas.  The  spades  in  the 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  125 

play  had  called  themselves  spades ;  but  Sallie  reiterated 
it,  flung  it  at  them  again,  tossed  it  in  lively  repetition 
all  over  her  article.  She  was  at  her  best  when  she  was 
at  her  worst,  and  it  was  her  garish  quality  only  that 
attracted. 

And  after  the  theatre  she  went  home,  and  the  spec- 
tres and  the  gnomes  came  out  and  danced  a  veritable 
can-can  round  her  bed.  The  visions  they  showed  her ! 
She  saw  Jack  again,  in  dual  solitude  with  Ivy  Hamp- 
ton ;  but  later  they  were  joined  by  Anastasia  Atwood, 
who  stood  beside  them  and  seemed  to  be  expounding 
important  theories.  But  Sallie  could  never  hear  any- 
thing. The  spectres  and  the  gnomes  gave  her  clair- 
voyance, but  not  clairaudience.  From  the  expressions 
on  the  faces  of  Jack  and  Ivy,  however,  Anastasia  must 
have  had  remarkable  views  to  set  forth,  for  Ivy  shrank 
back  in  dismay,  her  long  blonde  hair  touching  Jack's 
shoulder,  while  he  seemed  to  listen  with  a  rapt  air  of 
sublime  conviction.  The  spirit  of  the  article  she  had 
written — a  nudely  ribald  phantom — appeared  above  the 
three,  and  as  they  saw  it,  Anastasia  pointed  in  triumph, 
while  upon  the  face  of  Ivy — yes,  and  later  of  Jack — was 
a  frozen  horror  that  was  irresistible. 

Sallie  awoke  with  a  start.  It  was  a  nightmare.  She 
switched  on  the  electric  light  and  sat  pale  and  shiv- 
ering. 

Bathos :  Next  day,  when  she  told  Mr.  Childers,  in 
reply  to  his  questions  anent  her  ghastly  face  and  heavy- 
lidded  eyes,  that  she  had  slept  distressingly,  he  as- 
cribed it  to  the  Chateaubriand. 

"I  thought  at  the  time,"  he  said,  "that  it  was  rather 
overdone." 


CHAPTER  X. 

SEEDY-LOOKING  individual,  blear-eyed, 
dishevelled,  and  unkempt,  crept  into  the  owls' 
nest  one  night,  about  a  month  after  the 
epoch-making  "reception."  His  gait  was 
not  too  steady,  but  he  entered  the  room  presided  over 
by  Mr.  Green,  with  a  certain  bibulous  self-assurance 
that  was  sufficient  to  overcome  the  scruples  of  the  office 
boys.  His  business  was  with  Mr.  Green,  he  said,  and 
he  had  come  to  sell  an  "exclusive  story."  Years  ago 
this  feeble,  palsied  wreck  had  been  a  promising  owl, 
and  had  made  some  sort  of  a  reputation  in  metropolitan 
journalism.  He  had  now  reached  the  not  unfamiliar 
stage  when,  unable  to  turn  to  any  other  employment, 
he  clung  to  the  ragged  edges  of  Owldom  and  earned 
a  precarious  livelihood  by  selling  occasional  "beats." 
He  might  have  been  blazoned  forth  in  Owldom  as  the 
sorry  goal  to  which  so  many  of  its  votaries  tended ;  but 
he  pointed  no  moral  and  declined  to  adorn  a  tale.  To 
the  young  owls  he  was,  of  course,  a  sinister  exception, 
and  in  their  youth  and  strength,  and  fine,  bubbling  ener- 
gies they  could  not  understand  this  pitiful  finish. 

They  laughed  at  poor  old  Witherby,  he  was  so  in- 
corrigible ;  but  the  older  men  were  not  amused.  They 
saw  in  this  tattered  human  pulp,  a  sickly  reminder  of 
odious  possibilities,  for  in  Owldom  there  is  little  pro- 
vision for  the  inevitable  "rainy  day;"  yet  few  die  in 
harness.  When  "beats"  were  rare  and  people  went 
through  the  world  declining  to  do  "exclusive"  things, 
the  old  man  would  appear  at  the  office  on  salary  day 
and  make  incoherent  demands  in  the  name  of  journal- 
ism. All  the  owls  listened,  and  gave;  for  the  hearts 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  127 

of  these  birds  of  Newspaper  Row  are  warm,  and  hu- 
man, and  recklessly  generous.  He  appealed  to  any  of 
them,  or  to  all  of  them,  from  the  office  boy  to  Sallie 
Sydenham.  They  were  used  to  what  they  called  a 
"touch;"  and  though  a  few  might  have  marvelled  at 
this  picture  of  degradation,  discarded  self-esteem,  and 
vanished  respect,  they  gave.  Poor  old  Witherby! 
He  was  so  usual,  and  there  were  so  many  of  him ! 

Mr.  Green  was  not  in  his  happiest  mood  as  the  old 
man  slouched  in  on  this  particular  night,  exhaling  stale 
odors  of  the  rumshop.  The  "staff"  labored  in  the 
usual  furtive  and  noiseless  way ;  Sallie,  sitting  close  to 
Mr.  Green's  desk,  was  generously  casting  adjectives 
at  the  reputation  of  Clyde  Fitch.  The  hum,  and  click, 
and  drone,  and  tinkle — all  soaked  in  a  bourdonnement 
that  occurs  nowhere  else — were  noticeable  to  the  un- 
initiated; to  the  initiated  they  were  as  involuntary  as 
the  processes  of  inhalation  and  exhalation.  Mr.  Green, 
however,  was  cross.  A  magnificent  scandal,  glowing 
with  a  wealth  of  incandescent  possibility,  had  failed  to 
materialize,  and  had,  in  fact,  obliterated  itself  com- 
pletely. This  had  "riled"  the  night  city  editor,  and 
he  was  inclined  to  view  life  rather  "hopelessly  and  to 
snarl  at  the  tame,  conventional  episodes  that  were  to 
fill  the  morrow's  paper. 

He  greeted  old  Witherby  with  nothing  more  than  a 
frown ;  but  he  had  presence  of  mind  enough  to  set  aside 
the  perpetual  ham-sandwich  that  he  had  been  preparing 
to  explore  until  the  atmosphere,  which  had  grown 
dense  and  nauseating  with  the  advent  of  the  vinous  vis- 
itor, should  be  clear  and  bracing  again. 

"Sa-ay,  Mr.  Green,"  began  Witherby,  with  an  in- 
troductory hiccough,  "I've  got  a  tip  for  you — just  a 
tip ;  but  if  the  story  pans  out,  don't  you  forget  With- 
erby's  envelope  on  Tuesday  morning.  It  appears" — 


128  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  here  he  grew  confidential  and  proximate — "that 
there's  trouble  brewing  for  our  famous  American  actor, 
pet  of  the  matinee  girls,  Arthur  Stuyvesant." 

He  paused,  and  drew  a  red  handkerchief  across  his 
lips.  Then,  steadying  himself  against  Mr.  Green's 
desk,  he  continued :  "It  seems  that  Stuyvesant  has  an 
entanglement — oh,  the  usual  thing,  you  know,  although 
Stuyvesant  has  generally  managed  to  keep  his  af- 
fairs from  the  public,  and  has  had  the  'repu- 
tation' only  until  now.  An  actor  in  Stuyvesant's  com- 
pany told  me  that  the  other  night  Arthur  was  a  little 
bit  under  the  weather"  (this  was  the  poor  old  wreck's 
invariable  way  of  characterizing  his  own  chronic  con- 
dition), "and  that  while  in  that  state  he  had  confessed 
that  he  was  having  a  hard  time  with  his  wife.  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant  had  'tumbled'  to  the  liaison"  (he  pro- 
nounced it  "leah-zong"),  "and  had  threatened  divorce. 
Now,  you  know,  Stuyvesant  doesn't  mind  notoriety, 
and  I  don't  fancy  that  a  divorce  case  would  bother  him 
at  all.  But  he  said  that  the  lady  in  the  case  was  quite 
unusual,  and  that  not  for  the  world  would  he  bring 
her  name  before  the  public.  I  asked  the  actor  her 
name.  He  did  not  know,  for  Stuyvesant  was  sober 
enough  to  refuse  to  tell  him.  Stuyvesant,  I  believe, 
has  been  seen  with  her,  and — it  is  quite  mysterious, 
Mr.  Green — she  wears  a  heavy  gauze  veil.  And  there 
are  rumors  that  they  have  a  furnished  apartment, 
where  they  meet  quite  in  the  general  French  novel 
style." 

"Well,  Miss  Sydenham,  what  is  it?" 

Sallie  had  risen  from  her  seat,  and  stood  staring  stu- 
pidly at  the  night  city  editor  with  eyes  that  were  wide, 
blank,  and  meaningless.  Her  lips  were  white,  except 
where  a  tiny  spot  of  blood  seemed  to  indicate  lacera- 
tion. The  eternal  rouge  on  her  skin  surmounted,  like 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  129 

the  carmine  clots  on  the  chalky  make-up  of  a  clown,  a 
face  that  was  utterly  blanched.  Mr.  Green's  words 
reached  her  as  though  spoken  by  a  voice  from  another 
world. 

"What  is  it,  Miss  Sydenham?"  he  repeated,  "Can't 
you  see  that  I'm  busy  just  now?" 

She  sat  down  and  tried  to  resume  her  task;  but  the 
reputation  of  Clyde  Fitch  and  the  criticism  of  his  pup- 
pets, seemed  too  ridiculously  trivial  in  comparison  with 
the  live,  palpitating  horror  to  which  she  had  listened 
and  must  continue  to  listen.  Her  hand  shook,  and  she 
wrote  zigzags  over  her  "copy"  paper.  The  reporters 
never  even  paused  in  their  work.  These  little  recita- 
tions made  no  appeal  to  their  interests.  As  a  general 
thing,  moreover,  they  led  to  a  "wild  goose  chase"  as- 
signment that  was  distinctly  irritating. 

"Go  on,"  commanded  Mr.  Green.  "Continue,  Mr. 
Witherby." 

"There  is  little  more,"  the  poor  old  ex-owl  remarked, 
quite  sorrowfully.  "Of  course,  it  is  possible  that  noth- 
ing more  may  happen.  Everything  may  be  amicably 
settled.  You  must  move  cautiously,  very  cautiously, 
Mr.  Green.  This  is  a  tip,  and  it  is  worth  watching. 
You  see,  we  have  no  inkling  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
woman.  She  might  be — " 

"Oh,  she  might  be  one  of  the  Four  Hundred,"  in- 
terrupted the  night  city  editor,  excitedly,  rising  and 
pacing  about  in  febrile  agitation.  "She  might  be  any- 
body. She  might  be  one  of  the  most  prominent  names 
in  the  elite  directory.  It  might  pan  out  to  be  the  great- 
est story  of  the  season.  These  fools  of  women  all  go 
crazy  over  this  insane  mummer — this  leathery,  mutton- 
faced  actor,  with  as  much  talent  as  a  tobacconist's  red 
Indian.  It  is  incredible."  Then,  realizing  that  his  busi- 
ness instinct  was  being  submerged  by  his  artistic 


130  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

perception  of  "news,"  and  that  old  Witherby's  effort 
must  be  appropriately  belittled,  he  calmed  himself.  "It 
may  amount  to  nothing  at  all,  Mr.  Witherby,"  he  said. 
"I'll  investigate  it,  and  see  what  it's  worth.  Thank 
you.  Of  course,  you  understand  that  this  is  exclusive. 
If  it  goes  to  any  other  paper — not  a  cent." 

"You  know  me,  Mr.  Green,"  replied  the  loose  old 
lips.  "You  know  me.  My  word  is  my  bond."  And 
he  shuffled  out,  a  ray  of  hope  in  his  blotted  eyes,  a  fond 
and  almost  radiant  expectation  that  Mrs.  Stuyvesant, 
with  due  respect  for  Owldom,  would  make  things  prof- 
itably warm  for  her  recalcitrant  husband.  Mr.  Green 
rubbed  his  hands  gleefully,  opened  the  window  for  the 
benefit  of  his  olfactory  senses,  unwrapped  the  paper 
containing  the  ham  sandwich,  and  sat  down  to  think 
the  matter  over. 

Sallie's  unfinished  criticism  lay  on  the  desk  before 
her.  She  had  added  nothing  to  it  since  old  Witherby 
had  interrupted  her  comments  upon  this  mimic  life,  and 
she  knew  that  it  must  go  into  the  records  forever  in- 
complete. She  scrawled  a  last  halting  line,  bringing 
the  article  to  an  unexpected  close,  signed  her  name  to 
it,  and  handed  it  to  an  office  boy  to  take  to  the  com- 
posing room.  Her  mind  was  made  up.  She  wrenched 
the  lugubrious  thoughts  from  her  brain,  and  with 
a  fair  simulation  of  her  usually  unsimulated  aplomb, 
she  went  to  Mr.  Green's  desk,  and,  drawing  up  a  chair, 
sat  down  beside  him.  He  was  eating  his  sandwich 
restfully,  and  she  saw  him  push  a  little  bit  of  pendulous 
white  fat  into  his  mouth,  carefully  noting  this  trifle, 
which  proved  to  her  that  she  was  sedate,  serene,  and 
able  to  play  the  game  to  the  bitter  end,  if  need  be. 

"Mr.  Green,"  she  said,  and  she  tried  a  blithe  little 
laugh  that  went  very  well  indeed,  and  sounded  quite 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  131 

like  the  real  thing,  "I  heard  old  Witherby's  story.  Wo- 
men are  dreadfully  inquisitive  things,  aren't  they? 
They  are  not  precisely  curious,  but  they  like  to  know. 
Are  you  going  to  do  anything  about  it  ?" 

"Do  anything  about  it?"  he  repeated,  spluttering, 
and  gulping  down  the  last  crust.  "Do  anything  about 
it?  Why,  Miss  Sydenham,  aren't  you  newspaper  wo- 
man enough  to  see  what  this  story  means,  or  might 
mean?" 

Sallie  laughed  again,  for  her  merriment  was  the 
office's  perquisite.  "Indeed  I  am,"  she  said  brightly. 
"I  just  wanted  to  see  you  look  surprised,  Mr.  Green, 
and  of  course  you  fell  into  the  trap.  Yes,  I  realize 
that  this  might  be  a  great  thing — three  columns  and 
a  scare  head.  In  fact,  I  was  so  awfully  interested  that 
I  really  couldn't  finish  my  work,  and  have  just  turned 
in  a  criticism  to  which  I  was  almost  ashamed  to  sign 
my  name.  It  quite  excited  me — it  appealed  to  me ; 
and  for  that  reason,  Mr.  Green,  I'm  going  to  be  first  in 
the  field,  and  ask  you  to  let  me  work  it  up.  I  think  I 
could  do  it,  and  make  a  big  hit  with  it.  I've  met  Ar- 
thur Stuyvesant,  you  know,  and  I  could  manage  him 
much  better  than  an  ordinary  reporter  could  do.  Oh, 
do  give  me  the  chance,  Mr.  Green,  please.  I've  never 
had  an  assignment  before,  but  this  one — oh,  this  is 
within  my  scope.  I  could  ferret  it  out,  I  know  I 
could.  May  I?  May  I,  Mr.  Green?" 

He  looked  at  her  rather  seriously,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  that  she  was  flushed — but  of  course  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  know  for  sure,  as  Sallie's  flushes  came  in  the 
shape  of  powder  and  could  be  worn  at  any  time.  Then 
it  occurred  to  him  that  her  idea  was  not  absolutely  im- 
pious, although  unusual,  for  dramatic  critics  are  not, 
as  a  rule,  adept  at  news  stories.  Still,  Sallie  was  a 


132  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

very  bright  girl,  and  she  had  never  failed  in  anything. 
In  this  case  a  woman's  wit  might  accomplish  what  a 
man's  more  durate  perception  would  balk  at.  ... 

"Why  are  you  so  anxious  to  work  up  this  story?" 
he  asked  sharply. 

"Why?"  Sallie  was  startled,  and  it  seemed  to  her 
that  he  was  reading  her.  "Why?"  She  glanced  at 
those  fishy  eyes,  and  knew  that  their  mind-reading 
powers  were  tightly  circumscribed.  "Why?  Be- 
cause it's  interesting.  It  will  be  a  change.  I'm  sick 
of  grinding  out  criticisms.  I'm  tired  of  writing :  'Ar- 
thur Stuyvesant  was  unreal.'  I  want  to  show  that  he 
is  real,  and  as  horrid  in  reality  as  he  is  on  the  stage. 
I've  said  fifty  times  that  he  is  a  bad  actor.  Now,  I  be- 
lieve, we  can  prove  that  he  is  a  bad  man.  Oh,  Mr. 
Green,  I  have  the  most  gorgeous  idea  for  writing  up 
this  story.  I  can  weave  his  stage  life  into  his  real 
life  .  .  .  and  I  can  compare  him  with  various  roles 
that  I've  seen  him  interpret.  Last  season  he  played  a 
man  leading  a  double  life,  and  the  matinee  girls  were 
wild  with  delight  over  it.  This  is  my  chance,  and  the 
more  I  think  about  it  the  more  I  see  what  I  can  do  with 
it." 

She  was  all  aglow  with  excitement.  Her  lips  were 
so  dry,  that  she  was  compelled  to  moisten  them  as  she 
spoke.  In  her  hands  she  held  a  small  lace  handker- 
chief, and  she  tore  it  slowly  into  tatters.  Nothing  had 
meant  more  to  her  than  this  assignment,  and  she 
wanted  to  show  him  that  it  signified  much — arid  then, 
again,  that  it  didn't. 

"Nothing  has  ever  occurred  during  your  wanderings 
around  the  theatres  to  give  you  any  inkling  as  to  the 
identity  of  the  woman  ?"  He  fixed  his  eyes  upon  her, 
penetratingly. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  replied  lightly.     "After  a  performance 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  133 

I  hurry  downtown.  But  I  feel  sure  that  I  can  find  out. 
Oh,  I  have  many  channels  of  information,  Mr.  Green. 
It  must  be  somebody  in  high  society,  because  he  goes 
out  a  good  deal.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  the  wing  of 
the  Four  Hundred  sheltered  her.  Oh,  it  will  be  such 
fun.  I  shall  work  at  this  assignment  as  though  my 
whole  reputation  depended  upon  it.  For  you  will  give 
it  to  me,  won't  you,  Mr.  Green?" 

"Not  so  fast — not  so  fast,  Miss  Sydenham."  But  in 
reality  he  was  delighted  at  this  outburst  of  enthusiasm, 
which  contrasted  so  favorably  with  the  apathy  of  the 
male  owls,  who  "went  out  on  a  story"  for  the  purpose 
of  demonstrating,  not  what  was  in  it,  but  what  wasn't. 
"I  wonder  if  Rita  Eisenstein  is  in  the  office.  Perhaps 
she  could  give  us  a  point  or  two.  Her  society  col- 
umns are  pretty  good,  and  perhaps  she  has  heard 
rumors,  on  dits,  or  whispers.  Perhaps — " 

"You  don't  intend  to  give  her  the  story?"  Sallie 
could  scarcely  frame  the  question,  which,  if  she  had 
only  known  it,  was  quite  absurd,  as  Miss  Eisenstein's 
literary  and  detective  abilities  were  about  on  a  par  with 
those  of  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson. 

Miss  Eisenstein  was  sent  for,  and  responded  prompt- 
ly to  Mr.  Green's  call.  She  appeared  in  the  city 
room  wearing  her  latest  Division  Street  confection 
rather  rakishly,  upon  the  side  of  her  head.  She  paid 
no  attention  whatsoever  to  Miss  Sydenham,  and  took 
elaborate  pains  to  conspicuously  ignore  her  presence 
beside  Mr.  Green.  Miss  Eisenstein  assumed  an  air  of 
great  importance  when  the  night  city  editor  had  fully 
explained  himself  to  her.  At  first,  she  laughed  in 
spectacular  disdain  when  he  evolved  his  question  and 
asked  her  if,  during  her  society  jaunts,  she  had  heard 
any  woman's  name  coupled  with  that  of  Arthur  Stuy- 
vesant.  She  was  anxious  to  pose  as  walking  only  in  the 


134  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

most  exclusive  paths,  and  she  larded  all  her  remarks 
with  Astor  and  Vanderbilt,  until  Sallie  almost  began 
to  believe  that  Miss  Eisenstein  lived  with  them.  Mr. 
Green  was  not  at  all  impressed  by  her  airs  and  manner- 
isms, and  nipped  her  eloquence  in  its  bud,  pinning  her 
down  to  precise  answers.  Like  other  well-regulated 
owls,  the  night  city  editor  held  the  feminine  adjuncts 
in  but  slight  esteem.  They  irritated  him,  as  lacking 
the  cool,  matter-of-fact  logic  of  men,  as  well  as  the 
adorable  non-logic  of  amusing  women.  He  was  wont 
to  allude  to  them  as  excrescences  when  in  the  sanctity 
of  his  domestic  circle ;  and  Mrs.  Green,  who  had  never 
been  an  owl,  was  pleased  to  see  that  in  Newspaper- 
dom,  at  any  rate,  there  would  be  no  temptations  for 
him  to  wander  from  his  own  fireside. 

Miss  Eisenstein,  brought  down  to  immediate  neces- 
sities,-insolently  debited  Mr.  Green  with  a  list  of  can- 
didates for  the  honor  of  sensational  scandal.  With 
nonchalant  impudence,  combined  with  a  nauseating 
jocularity,  she  cast  abominable  slurs  upon  conspicuous 
reputations,  and  submerged  honored  names  beneath 
the  slime  and  ooze  of  inconceivable  stigma.  She  did 
it  all  with  a  fine  sense  of  pride-in-calling.  The  proud 
wives  and  daughters  of  the  Four  Hundred  were  trotted 
out  in  procession,  and  Miss  Eisenstein  reviewed  them 
through  lenses  of  suspicion,  insinuation,  and  loath- 
some innuendo.  She  tore  them  to  tatters,  wrecked 
fair  fame,  and  ravaged  pretentious  chastity ;  and  all  the 
time  there  was  conscious  self-approval  in  her  eyes,  and 
a  great  sense  of  her  own  journalistic  importance  in  her 
uttered  words. 

Sallie  felt  sick  at  heart  as  she  listened  to  all  this 
brazen  palaver.  A  wave  of  disgust  swept  her  while 
Miss  Eisenstein  vigorously  trampled  down  smiling, 
reputable  edifices,  and  devastated  a  veritable  horde  of 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  135 

characters.  This  was  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  femi- 
nine owl.  At  the  beck  and  call  of  this  smug,  audacious 
woman  were  latent  fires,  ready  at  a  moment's  no- 
tice to  burst  forth,  and  lick  into  blackness  all  that  had 
kept  itself  in  untarnished  security.  The  hatefulness 
of  it!  Yet  this  man — this  instigator — could  sit  and 
listen  to  it !  He  did  not  spring  at  her  throat  and  stran- 
gle the  noisome  words  as  they  struggled  for  exit.  Sal- 
lie  looked  at  him,  in  dismay,  as  he  sat  munching  the 
cud  of  this  odious  debit  account. 

No,  Miss  Eisenstein  could  not  positively  say  that  she 
had  heard  any  name  absolutely  coupled  with  that  of  Ar- 
thur Stuyvesant.  But  she  knew  for  a  fact  that  in  so- 
ciety, just  at  present,  there  were  a  number  of  suspects, 
any  of  whom  could  fit  into — any  disreputable  story. 
There  was  Miss  Snooks,  who  "came  out"  this  season, 
for  instance.  At  Newport  she  had  been  very  much  dis- 
cussed, and  there  was  a  report  that  she  might  have  to 
retire  before  the  New  York  season  began.  Very  smart 
girl,  very  classy,  but  dreadfully  fast !  Every  one  knew 
the  cat-and-dog  life  that  young  Van  Orden  and  his 
wife  led.  He  had  accused  her  of  awful  things,  before 
everybody,  at  Mrs.  Popinjay's  reception.  He  had  men- 
tioned no  name,  but  .  .  .  well,  you  could  suit  your- 
self. It  was  just  an  amusing  sort  of  puzzle :  find  the 
man.  And  there  was  little  Julia  de  Brest,  who  had 
done  horrible  things,  and  made  no  bones  about  it.  She 
had  been  seen  at  Archie  Forrest's  chambers  at  an  tin- 
godly  hour  of  the  night.  Archie  knew  all  sorts  of 
Bohemians,  actors,  bon  viveurs,  and  folks  with  pimply 
reputations.  .  .  .  There  were  the  Williamson  girls, 
four  of  them,  who  had  been  packed  off  to  Europe  at 
the  close  of  last  season,  on  account  of  a  scandal  at  a 
country  house.  It  had  been  kept  as  dark  as  possible, 
but  the  facts  had  leaked  out.  Of  course,  they  were 


136  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

not  pretty ;  but  they  had  lots  of  money,  and  to  an  actor, 
you  know,  a  girl  with  ready  cash  meant  everything. 
.  .  .  Old  Dowager  Dumpkins,  who  must  be  sixty  if 
a  day,  was  notoriously  addicted  to  the  society  of  young 
men — very  young  men.  They  said  that  she  absolutely 
"supported"  Riggioso,  the  tenor  of  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House  Company.  Most  actors  knew  her,  for 
she  sought  them  out,  and  dangled  them  before  the  pub- 
lic, tied  to  her  apron-strings.  .  .  .  And  Lady  Pompton 
— old  Appleville's  daughter,  who  had  been  sold  to  Lord 
Algernon  three  seasons  ago — she  was  very  much  "on 
the  razzle" — oh,  everybody  knew  it,  and  it  had  ceased 
to  be  a  wonder.  It  was  tacitly  admitted,  and  Lady 
Pompton  had  been  threatened  with  "proceedings"  by 
a  cable  from  Lord  Algernon,  now  at  Nice.  .  .  .  There 
was  Violet  Dore,  whose  husband  hadn't  a  cent  to  his 
name,  but  who,  at  the  last  Assembly,  wore  a  magnifi- 
cent diamond  necklace  worth  at  least  fifty  thousand. 
She  was  utterly  Bohemian,  and  carelessly  undiscrimi- 
nating.  In  fact,  the  Four  Hundred  had  almost  deter- 
mined to  give  her  the  cold  shoulder.  You  see,  the 
Four  Hundred  had  no  objection  at  all  to  a  few  little 
amiable  peccadilloes,  when  they  were  not  found  out. 
But  once  discovered,  then  an  example  must  be  made, 
in  all  fairness,  in  all  decency.  .  .  . 

Miss  Eisenstein  was  delighted  with  herself,  as  she 
reeled  off  her  exhaustive  list.  It  caused  her  to  realize 
her  own  value  to  the  paper.  She  was  an  encyclope- 
dia of  useless  knowledge,  and  she  flattered  herself  that 
no  mere  man  could  get  beneath  the  very  "cuticle"  of 
"society"  as  she  had  contrived  to  do.  She  could  have 
talked  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  now  that  she  had  been 
so  promisingly  started.  She  tilted  her  Division  Street 
hat  over  her  beetle  brows,  and  gazed  with  conscious 
self-esteem  at  Mr.  Green. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  137 

The  night  city  editor,  who  had  flaired  possibilities 
when  she  began,  looked  perplexed  when  she  paused 
in  the  interminable  debit  account.  It  was  an  embarras 
de  richesses,  and  he  did  not  like  this  "pick  and  choose" 
from  a  veritable  magician's  scrap-bag.  He  would  have 
preferred  two  or  three  promising  cases  of  misdemeanor 
and  adultery.  Miss  Eisenstein's  list  was  too  inclusive. 
Apparently,  it  contained  no  righteous  women.  The 
"thousand  liveried  angels"  waiting  to  "lackey"  the 
saintly  chastity  "so  dear  to  Heaven"  must  have  found 
their  occupation  gone  with  a  vengeance.  It  was  quite 
exasperating.  Still,  his  journalistic  soul  was  moved 
to  admiration,  as  he  realized  the  extent  of  her  knowl- 
edge. 

"It  is  a  long  list,"  he  said,  "very  long.  You  are  the 
right  one  to  call  upon  in  these  emergencies,  Miss  Eisen- 
stein." 

"Oh,  I've  not  nearly  finished,"  she  simpered,  primp- 
ing. "I  could  babble  on  like  the  brook,  forever.  I 
love  my  work,  Mr.  Green.  I  am  an  enthusiast ;  other- 
wise I  simply  couldn't  keep  abreast  of  the  times.  It  is 
a  great  deal  of  a  fag,  but  the  cause  is  worth  it.  I  do 
not  complain." 

Sallie  sat  very  silent,  ashamed,  for  the  first  time,  of 
the  sex  to  which  she  belonged.  These  men,  these 
hard-working  beings  in  trousers,  were  surely  infinitely 
superior.  They  earned  the  inevitable  livelihood  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brows,  because  they  had  to  do  it.  She 
recoiled  in  revolt  from  the  spectacle  of  this  owl-girl 
in  the  hat,  her  face  wreathed  in  smiles.  .  .  .  Yet  she 
herself  was  equally  to  be  censured.  She  did  not  glory 
in  her  ribald  writings,  or  experience  a  soulful  satis- 
faction in  the  daily  knowledge  that  she  wrote  with  the 
license  of  a  man.  Still,  she  wrote,  and  money  was 
offered  to  her  and  accepted.  She  needed  it,  of  course ; 


138  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

she  needed  it  badly.  ...  It  was  an  irritating  prob- 
lem. .  .  .  She  wished  that  she  had  not  been  there  to 
listen  to  Rita  Eisenstein's  monologue.  It  had  made 
her  feel  uncomfortable,  and  self-reproachful.  She 
thought  of  the  bar-room  plays  with  scavenger  dia- 
logue, that  she  openly  discussed  in  the  office  with  Mr. 
Green.  .  .  .  No.  she  was  not  justified  for  a  single  in- 
stant in  condemning  Miss  Eisenstein.  They  were  in 
the  same  class,  although,  perhaps,  if  the  dishonors  had 
been  distributed,  Rita  would  have  been  allotted  the 
lion's  share. 

"Shall  I  continue,  Mr.  Green?"  queried  Miss  Eisen- 
stein, sweetly  willing.  She  glanced  at  her  reflection 
in  the  dark  window,  and  straightened  her  hat.  It  was 
a  dream  of  a  hat,  and  such  a  bargain ! 

"No,"  he  said  wearily.  "That  will  do.  I  am  very 
much  obliged  to  you.  I  had  no  idea  that  there  were 
so  many  subjects,  Miss  Eisenstein.  It  makes  my  work 
very  much  harder." 

"You  must  dislike  this  atmosphere  of  contamination, 
Miss  Eisenstein,"  Sallie  said,  with  voluntary  malice. 
"It  must  be  very  trying  to  a  girl  of  your  sensitive  na- 
ture." 

"It  is,"  retorted  the  other,  with  a  bland  smile.  "But 
I  do  not  have  to  write  iniquities.  I  merely  store  them 
up  for  future  reference.  It  must  be  worse  for  you, 
writing  them  every  day." 

Miss  Eisenstein  made  a  note  of  this  cutting  rejoinder 
for  the  benefit  of  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  Happy 
Hippy,  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  Anastasia  Atwood,  and  other 
associate  vestals  and  sirens  of  Owldom.  She  had 
scored  one  at  the  expense  of  the  disreputable  Miss  Syd- 
enham,  who,  with  a  reputation  hanging  in  shreds,  had 
launched  her  sarcasms  at  a  conscientious  worker,  full 
of  legitimate  enthusiasm  and  pride. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  139 

"Don't  mind  her,  Miss  Sydenham,"  said  Mr.  Green, 
soothingly,  as  Miss  Eisenstein  withdrew.  "She  is  jeal- 
ous of  you,  naturally.  Poor  thing!  I  think  she  gets 
thirty-five  a  week.  And  she  works  hard.  There  is 
no  doubt  at  all  about  that.  She  is  a  mine  of  informa- 
tion." 

"A  sewer,"  retorted  Sallie. 

He  laughed.  "But  she  has  not  thrown  any  light 
upon  the  situation,"  he  declared.  "She  has,  in  fact, 
rendered  it  more  difficult  to  cope  with.  She  has  con- 
fronted us  with  a  task,  compared  with  which  searching 
for  a  needle  in  a  bundle  of  hay  is  mere  pastime.  I  am 
afraid  that  I  hardly  like  to  entrust  you  with  such  a  job, 
Miss  Sydenham.  It  is  detective  work,  and  you  are  not 
used  to  that  kind  of  thing.  It  seems  ridiculous  to  ask 
a  writer  to  attend  to  such  a  matter  as  this.  Don't  you 
think—" 

"Oh,  please,  Mr.  Green" — Sallie  felt  desperate,  for 
the  ground  seemed  to  be  slipping  beneath  her  feet — "I 
shall  not  fail  you.  I  can't  tell  you  how  excited  I  am 
about  this  story.  I  feel  as  much  enthusiasm  as  Miss 
Eisenstein  does  for  her — for  her  work." 

Mr.  Green's  interest  in  the  matter  was  slightly  on  the 
wane.  Journalistic  promises,  that  look  rosy  and 
luminous  when  first  mooted,  fade  quickly  into  unim- 
portance. Their  value  diminishes  as  they  are  coldly 
discussed  with  accessory  obstacles  in  sight.  More- 
over, the  ever-errant  Spirit  of  Libel  seemed  to  hover 
menacingly  around  this  particular  case.  Every  owl 
rushes  in  affright  from  this  dangerous,  threatening 
Spirit.  Mr.  Green's  fervor  was  slightly  dampened, 
and  Sallie,  noting  it,  began  to  feel  that  things  might 
go  her  way. 

"Tell  you  what  I'll  do,"  said  Mr.  Green,  in  reaction. 


140  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"I  can't  assign  you  to  this  on  my  own  responsibility. 
I'll  discuss  the  matter  with  Mr.  Childers — " 

"No,"  cried  Sallie,  in  alarm. 

"Yes,"  retorted  the  night  city  editor,  with  a  smile. 
"You  are  not  afraid  of  Childers.  He  likes  you,  and 
thinks  the  world  of  your  work.  I  can't  depart  from  the 
rules  of  the  office  to  the  extent  of  giving  an  important 
reportorial  assignment  to  the  dramatic  critic  without 
consulting  the  managing  editor — " 

"I  would  sooner  not,"  she  murmured.  The  com- 
plications seemed  to  be  piling  up,  and  a  great  and  name- 
less dread  oppressed  her. 

"See  here,  young  woman,"  he  said  indulgently,  "you 
cannot  rule  the  roost.  You  want  this  work,  and  you 
shall  have  it,  if  possible.  But  I  must  cover  myself, 
you  know,  so  that  if  you  get  the  paper  left — not  that 
I  believe  for  a  moment  you  will  do  so — the  re- 
sponsibility is  removed  from  my  shoulders.  If  you 
want  to  back  out,  there  is  still  time.  I  do  not  ask  you 
to  worry  about  this  case.  It  is  the  very  last  request 
I  should  make  of  you.  It  is  you  who  suggest  it.  To 
please  you  I  will  lay  the  matter  before  Mr.  Childers, 
and  if  he  says  yes — " 

"Very  well,"  muttered  Sallie,  doggedly.  "Ask  him. 
Why  not  ?  I  am  willing." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

ALLIE  sat,  steeped  in  thought,  waiting  until 
the  time  came  when  she  could  plausibly  re- 
pair to  Jack  Childers'  office.  Yet  the  pros- 
pect of  the  ride  uptown  in  the  Elevated  was 
not  as  seductive  as  usual.  The  birth  of  a  malevolent 
secret  had  taken  place,  and  she  knew  that  it  would 
grow  .  .  .  and  grow  .  .  .  and  grow.  She  experi- 
enced an  absurdly  unreasonable  sense  of  disloyalty  in 
harboring  thoughts  that  she  would  not  dare  to  share 
with  Jack  Childers. 

She  sat  there,,  drenched  in  a  fast  rain  of  emotional 
imaginings.  Intuition,  which  is  a  sort  of  psychic  per- 
ception, was  far  more  responsible  for  her  discomfort- 
ing thoughts  than  was  the  cool,  deliberate,  pendulum- 
like  swing  of  logic.  For,  after  all,  Arthur  Stuyvesant 
was  a  notorious  metropolitan  character,  and  in  this 
latest  dimly  sketched  escapade  there  wa.s  a  whole  range 
of  distant  possibilities.  .  .  .  Sallie  discarded  them  all. 
They  were  irrelevant ;  she  was  quite  sure  of  that.  Im- 
possible to  rid  her  mind  of  what  seemed  like  absolute 
certainty.  Before  her  mental  eye  rose  that  picture  of  the 
tete-a-tete  at  the  owls'  nest  on  the  evening  of  the  fate- 
ful "reception."  She  could  not  obliterate  the  unblurred 
vision.  Why  had  she  felt  impelled  on  that  occasion 
to  tell  him  .  .  .  what  she  had  told  him  ?  Some  occult 
influence,  some  subconscious  suggestion,  had  led  her 
to  this.  Sallie  was  a  very  matter-of-fact  young  wo- 
man, to  whom  mysticism  was  very  much  like  trigonom- 
etry; but  the  conviction  that  Arthur  Stuyvesant  was 
henceforth  to  play  a  leading  role  in  the  drama  of  her 
life  was  irresistible.  As  fast  as  reason  stepped  forth 


142  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  said :  "The  chance  is  but  one  in  a  hundred  in  favor 
of  your  far-fetched  fears,"  intuition  glided  in  and 
chirped :  "You  are  right."  The  theory  of  probabili- 
ties, in  its  struggle  with  intuition,  is  like  the  surgeon's 
scalpel  attempting  to  dissect  the  soul. 

She  sat  and  read  the  proof  of  her  criticism  that  she 
had  nipped  in  the  bud.  She  was  conscious  of  its  stu- 
pidity, its  banality.  She  saw  the  exact  period  in  it 
when  old  Witherby  had  interrupted  her  train  of 
thought.  She  had  just  made  a  point  that  she  was 
about  to  decorate,  and  elaborate,  when  he  had  ap- 
peared. The  point  stood  there,  naked  and  unashamed, 
yearning  for  mental  clothing  and  adjectival  warmth. 
She  smiled  as  she  realized  the  utter  valuelessness  of 
her  contribution,  but  she  could  not  have  embellished  it 
if  her  life  had  been  at  stake.  Critics  are  occasionally 
assailed  by  this  stress  of  strenuous  reality,  and  the  ma- 
chine slips  .  .  .  and  the  train  is  derailed. 

It  was  nearly  one  o'clock  when  she  entered  Jack 
Childers'  sanctum.  He  was  chatting  rather  apathet- 
ically with  Charlie  Covington,  who  had,  apparently, 
"dropped  in."  She  could  not  keep  an  expression  of 
extreme  chagrin  from  her  face  as  she  beheld  Mr.  Cov- 
ington— the  friend  to  whom  she  owed  so  much.  Mr. 
Childers  was  in  an  amiable  and  eloquent  mood,  and  was 
drawlingly  expounding  his  impressions  of  the  lat- 
est novel.  Charlie  wore  evening-dress,  of  course 
(nothing  but  a  contagious  disease  could  have  kept  him 
from  a  dinner  coat  after  six  o'clock),  and  there  .was  no 
suggestion  of  Owldom  in  his  rigid  immaculacy  of  at- 
tire. 

Mr.  Childers,  however,  was  now  quite  ready  to  leave 
Owldom  for  the  night.  His  typewriter  girl,  who 
adored  him,  had  reluctantly  departed.  Sallie  saw  that 
her  hat  and  coat  were  absent  from  their  accustomed 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  143 

peg,  and  she  knew  that  the  girl  never  left,  until  there 
was  no  excuse  for  staying  longer.  The  office  chaffed 
this  maiden  about  her  hopeless  passion  for  Mr.  Child- 
ers.  She  even  dressed  to  suit  him,  and  had  once  been 
known  to  order  a  buff  gown  that  matched  a  particularly 
swagger  suit  imported  by  Mr.  Childers  from  his  Lon- 
don tailors.  Sallie  never  smiled  at  these  evidences  of 
girlish  adoration.  Perhaps  they  were  funny — every- 
body seemed  to  think  that  they  were — but  humor  de- 
pended largely  upon  the  point  of  view. 

"Ready  to  go  uptown,  Sallie?"  Mr.  Childers  asked, 
fixing  a  somewhat  quizzical  look  upon  her.  "If  so,  we 
may  as  well  start.  You're  coming,  aren't  you,  Char- 
lie?" 

Mr.  Covington  looked  very  serious,  Sallie  thought. 
She  hated  a  serious  mood,  and  she  noticed  that  Charlie 
Covington  had  been  wearing  one  very  conspicuously  of 
late,  especially  when  she  happened  to  be  in  his  vicinity. 
This  annoyed  her,  for  she  was  so  accustomed  to  diffuse 
gayety,  rather  than  solemnity,  that  she  began  to  regard 
Mr.  Covington  as  beyond  her.  But  she  chatted  care- 
lessly with  him  while  Jack  Childers  divested  himself 
of  his  office  coat,  and  made  himself  look  dapper  enough 
for  Fifth  Avenue  at  three  in  the  afternoon.  Park  Place 
at  one  in  the  morning  was  vastly  different,  although 
Mr.  Childers  professed  to  ignore  the  difference. 

They  were  silent  as  they  crossed  City  Hall  Park, 
with  its  ghostly  shadows  and  spectral  trees.  Sallie  felt 
the  weight  of  the  evening's  oppression,  and  her  mind 
seethed  with  plans,  and  schemes,  and  hopes,  that  she 
knew  would  not  be  realized.  It  seemed  to  her  that 
there  was  treachery  in  her  very  silence,  and  as  they 
hurried  towards  the  station  she  wondered  how  she 
could  let  Jack  Childers  go  placidly  home  ...  to  Ivy. 
Ivy  would  be  there,  of  course  ....  Whatever  Miss 


144  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Hampton  might  be,  she  was  coldly  and  deliberately  dis- 
creet. .  .  .  Sallie  felt  quite  sure  of  that;  but  it  made 
the  situation  more  dismally  complicated,  and  crueler. 
Every  word  that  old  Witherby  had  spoken  echoed 
through  her  mind,  particularly  this  insinuation  on  the 
subject  of  the  "furnished  apartment."  It  sounded  like 
the  situations  in  Paul  Bourget's  novels.  The  pied-a- 
terre  !  It  was  infamous ! 

"So,"  said  Jack  Childers,  as  they  seated  themselves 
in  the  Elevated  with  Charlie  Covington,  who  was  per- 
sistently silent,  "Green  tells  me  that  you  are  going  to 
take  an  assignment,  and  are  clamoring  to  unravel  a 
fetching  episode  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Arthur  Stuyvesant, 
actor.  He  asked  me  if  I  were  willing.  Of  course,  I 
said  I  was.  But  I  never  should  have  imagined  that 
you  would  be  anxious  for  that  kind  of  job." 

He  smiled  in  evident  non-editorial  amusement,  and 
Sallie  again  experienced  the  sensation  of  treachery  as 
she  forced  herself  to  smile  back  at  him.  "I  want  a 
pastime,"  she  said.  "I  write  too  much,  and  I'm  get- 
ting rusty.  Besides,  I  think  I  can  do  this,  and  .  .  . 
and  .  .  .  well,  somebody  has  to  do  it,  and  I  might  as 
well  be  that  somebody." 

"Why  ?"  Charlie  Covington  spoke  for  the  first  time. 
His  voice  was  tinged  with  harshness,  and  both  Sallie 
and  Childers  glanced  at  him  in  surprise.  They  knew 
him,  however,  for  a  somewhat  Quixotic  young  man 
.  .  .  but  Sallie  was  undaunted. 

"Why?"  she  asked,  laughing.  "Oh,  because  neither 
of  them  can  climb  a  tree  ...  or  to  get  to  the  other 
side  ...  or  because  of  the  sand  which  is  there,  and 
the  Pyramid  of  Cheops.  Those  are  the  only  answers 
I  can  think  of.  Can't  a  girl  want  without  having  to 
explain  by  a  diagram  why  she  wants?  Don't  glower 
at  me,  Charlie.  You  make  me  feel  quite  creepy,  and 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  145 

as  though  I  were  contemplating  some  evil  thing.  I 
suppose  you  think  that,  one  of  these  days,  I  shall  beg 
to  be  allowed  to  investigate  you?  Do  not  fear;  I  shall 
do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Seriously,  I  asked  Mr.  Green 
to  give  me  this  assignment  because  a  stage  favorite  is 
involved  in  it,  and  I  thought  the  work  would  be  ... 
er  .  .  .  rather  fascinating." 

Rather  fascinating!  Her  sense  of  humor — even  at 
her  own  expense — could  not  be  quite  suppressed,  and 
she  smiled  as  she  uttered  the  words. 

"It  is  not  nice  work  for  you,  Sallie,"  said  Mr.  Cov- 
ington,  quietly.  "It  is,  in  fact,  a  most  repulsive  and 
unnecessary  undertaking."  Then,  turning  to  Mr. 
Childers :  "I  wonder  you  allow  it,  Jack.  Sallie  has 
not  been  used  to  this  kind  of  thing.  She  has  enemies 
enough  as  it  is,  without  trying  to  make  more." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  replied  Jack  Childers,  with  a 
laugh,  "I  have  always  discovered  that  the  best  way  to 
please  women  is  to  let  'em  have  their  own  way.  You 
and  I  may  know  that  this  kind  of  work  is  distasteful 
and  displeasing;  but  Sallie  doesn't  know  it,  and  she 
wouldn't  believe  it  until  she  has  tried  it.  Eh,  Sallie? 
She  can  come  to  no  harm,  and  it  will  be  a  new  experi- 
ence for  her.  So,  as  she  is  set  upon  it,  and  Green  is 
equally  desirous  for  her  to  try  her  hand  at  'detectiving,' 
as  he  calls  it,  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  wet- 
blanketing  the  proceeding." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Sallie,  with  such  an  emphasis  of 
earnestness  that  Mr.  Childers  wondered  at  the  reckless 
waste  of  gratitude.  "Thank  you.  I  mean  it.  And 
perhaps  .  .  ." 

She  checked  herself,  for  absurd  words  struggled  to 
be  spoken ;  an  insane  desire  to  reassure  a  man  to  whom 
reassurance  would  mean  nothing  at  all,  possessed  her. 
This  fair,  amiable,  light-hearted  Jack  Childers,  sitting 


146  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

by  her  side,  seemed  an  object  for  pity  and  sympathy. 
But  she  must  not  express  them,  for  they  would  not  be 
understood. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said — and  he  laughed  at  his  idea — 
"perhaps  you  will  discover  that  the  lady  in  the  case  is 
.  .  .  Anastasia  Atwood.  I  saw  her  corner  him  for  a 
second  or  two  at  the  reception." 

Sallie  held  her  breath,  and  she  felt  that  she  was  pal- 
ing. The  reception !  Fate  had  taken  her  to  that  gath- 
ering of  the  owls,  which  she  could  never  forget.  But 
there  was  no  need  for  him  to  recall  that  function. 
Memory  plays  strange  pranks  ...  it  has  links  and 
invisible  wires  ...  it  connects  the  most  dissociated 
ideas.  .  .  . 

"Or  Amelia,"  she  cried  quickly  and  feverishly.  "Yes, 
Amelia.  Oh,  I  know  what  I  shall  find.  He  has  grown 
freckles ;  he  is  threatened  with  pimples ;  his  complex- 
ion has  been  lured  to  its  ruin,  and  he  has  been  con- 
sulting the  Amberg  Hutchinson.  And  during  the 
process  of  eradication  or  amelioration — I  might  say 
Amelia-ration,  but  punning  is  so  low,  and  so  obsolete 
— she  has  fallen  in  love  with  him.  Think  how  dra- 
matic it  would  be  to  find  her  at  his  feet,  swearing  that 
unless  he  would  be  hers  he  should  go,  with  all  his  freck- 
les, to  perdition.  Wouldn't  it  be  lovely  ?  Yet  it  might 
be  so,  mightn't  it  ?" 

She  rattled  on,  and  they  both  laughed,  as  they  always 
did  when  she  let  herself  loose — no  matter  how  idiotic 
were  her  sallies.  She  felt  thankful  to  see  that  Charlie 
Covington  was  amused.  She  was  frightened  of  Char- 
lie Covington;  he  was  so  serious  and  so  sinister. 
She  could  always  cope  with  Jack  Childers,  whose 
first  want — whose  only  want — perhaps — was  enter- 
tainment. 

"Perhaps  he  has  'liaisoned'  with  Lamp-Post  Lucy," 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  147 

she  continued  recklessly,  almost  vaulting  over  her 
words.  "He  has  become  aware  that  she  might  look 
well  in  tights,  as  leader  of  the  Amazon  march  at  the 
Folies,  and  he  has  been  trying  to  persuade  her.  Think 
of  him  kneeling  to  Lamp-Post  Lucy!  He  would  just 
reach  up  to  the  top  of  her  Wellington  boots.  Such  a 
womanly  woman !  I'd  give  a  week's  salary — though  I 
need  it  for  my  rent — if  it  were  Lamp-Post  Lucy. 
Wouldn't  you,  Mr.  Childers  ?  Wouldn't  you,  Charlie  ? 
Charlie,  you  are  so  proper,  so  pitifully,  so  abjectly 
proper,  that  if  Lucy  wore  tights  and  I  had  to  criticize 
her  you  would  say :  'Sallie,  you  are  a  woman.  Dismiss 
the  ribald  subject  in  a  few  words.'  " 

It  was  hard  work  to  go  the  pace,  but  Sallie  felt  that 
she  was  achieving  her  usual  success.  Jack  Childers  was 
convulsed  with  laughter;  and  though  it  was  a  blow  to 
her  amour  propre,  she  realized  that  the  stuff  she  talked 
was  quite  silly,  and  wondered  how  any  man  could  ap- 
preciate it.  Still,  Charlie  Covington  was  also  laughing. 
.  .  .  As  a  rule,  Sallie  enjoyed  her  own  witticisms,  and 
honestly  thought  that  she  was,  at  times,  quite  brilliant. 
To-night,  however,  her  own  humor  palled  upon  her  as 
veriest  twaddle.  She  was  not  in  the  mood  .  .  . 

She  must  give  them  some  more.  "Stay!"  she  went 
on,  in  mock  tragedy.  "We  are  forgetting  Happy  Hip- 
py, and — when  I  come  to  think  of  it — the  probability 
that  she  is  the  heavily  veiled  lady  is  very  strong.  Hap- 
py Hippy  couldn't  be  veiled  too  heavily  to  suit  me.  I 
could  stand  her  with  a  face  draped  in  cachemire.  It 
would  be  an  impYovement.  Happy  Hippy  is  very  fond 
of  actors — also  of  journalists,  and  lawyers,  and  doctors, 
and  ministers,  and  business  men,  and  commercial  trav- 
ellers. She  has  a  loving  heart.  She  could  put  up  with 
anything,  and  she  has  a  very  persuasive  and  fascinating 
way  with  her.  She  knows  how  to  flatter  men,  and 


148  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

actors  love  to  be  flattered.  (N.  B. — That  is  why  I  don't 
flatter  'em.)  It  might  be  Happy  Hippy.  Stranger 
things  have  happened  .  .  ." 

She  stopped  suddenly.  She  might  be  frivolling  in  a 
good  cause,  but  she  was  doing  a  detestable  thing  in  her 
effort  to  be  funny.  She  had  felt  nausea  and  disgust, 
just  a  few  hours  earlier,  when  she  heard  Miss  Eisen- 
stein  debiting  Mr.  Green  with  a  list  of  candidates  for 
the  position  of  delinquent.  Yet  she  herself — even 
though  she  were  not  doing  it  seriously — came  within  an 
ace  of  emulating  Miss  Eisenstein's  despised  example. 
Decency  uttered  a  quick  protest. 

"Go  on,"  cried  Jack  Childers,  like  a  spoiled  child 
asking  for  a  story  to  be  finished. 

"There  is  no  more,"  she  said.  After  all,  he  had 
started  it  by  suggesting  Anastasia  Atwood ;  but  it  was 
an  ugly  game,  a  frolic  with  mud,  and  it  had  gone  quite 
far  enough  for  all  purposes.  The  train  was  pulling 
up  into  the  Twenty-third  Street  station,  and  she  said 
good-night  to  Jack  Childers.  Charlie  Covington  joined 
her,  and  they  left  the  train  together.  She  saw  Mr. 
Childers,  left  alone,  take  the  inevitable  newspaper  from 
his  pocket  and  immerse  himself  in  its  contents,  even 
before  the  train  had  started  again.  She  wondered  at 
the  singular  lack  of  premonition  and  presentiment  in 
this  world.  Why  were  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
lacking  in  the  psychic  sense  ?  What  a  very  sad  lack  it 
was !  How  strange  it  was  that  those  who  were  en- 
dowed with  the  possibility  of  seeing  what  was  happen- 
ing beneath  their  own  noses,  should  be  regarded  as  un- 
canny and  supernormal.  Could  it  be  normal  to  know 
nothing,  to  be  quite  ignorant  until  something  came 
along  and  fell  upon  you,  to  crush  the  life  out  of  you? 
Sallie  wondered,  though  there  was  nothing  of  the  mys- 
tic about  her,  and  she  was  not  accustomed  to  dwell  upon 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  149 

thoughts  of  presentiments.  She  followed  Charlie  Cov- 
ington  down  the  stairs  of  the  Elevated  station. 

"Let's  have  a  Welsh  rabbit,  Sallie,"  he  said,  "and 
hang  our  ancestors !" 

She  was  still  so  occupied  with  her  thoughts,  that  a 
rabbit  of  any  nationality  whatsoever  would  have  been 
equally  convincing.  He  took  her  arm,  and  they  en- 
tered one  of  the  ever-open  restaurants  that  lie  in  the 
vicinity  of  Sixth  Avenue  and  Twenty-third  Street.  It 
was  not  a  particularly  appetizing  resort,  and  certainly 
Charlie  would  not  be  likely  to  meet  there  any  of  the 
swagger  acquaintances  who  were  wont  to  regard  him 
as  the  immaculate  young  clubman.  Apparently,  on 
this  occasion,  his  fastidious  sentiments  were  shelved. 
To  Sallie  one  restaurant  was  quite  as  good  as  another, 
and — when  she  was  hungry — better.  Just  now,  noth- 
ing mattered  very  much. 

"I  wish  you  were  not  in  for  that  very  unpleasant 
piece  of  work,  Sallie,"  said  Charlie,  when  the  meal  was 
served. 

"Have  you  brought  me  here  to  lecture  me?"  she 
asked,  with  a  rather  dangerous  gleam  in  her  eye,  for 
she  had  not  appointed  this  tete-a-tete  and  was  not  anx- 
ious for  its  duration. 

"No,"  he  said  slowly ;  "but  I  can't  help  thinking  that 
you  must  have  some  reason  for  wishing  to  undertake 
this  work.  It  isn't  like  you  to  grovel  in  vulgar  re- 
porting. You've  told  me  so  often  how  you  loathed 
the  idea  of  it,  and  how  sorry  you  felt  for  the  men  who 
were  forced  to  it." 

Sallie  was  desperate.  She  felt  as  the  hunted  ante- 
lope must  feel  on  the  verge  of  being  brought  to  bay. 
"Well,  suppose  I  have  a  reason?"  she  asked.  "What 
of  it?  Let  us  admit  that  I  have  a  reason.  And  then?" 

"And  then?"  he  repeated  gently.     The  sympathy  in 


150  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

his  soul  had  so  often  gone  forth  to  meet  that  which 
lurked  in  hers,  even  though  she  had  scarcely  realized 
it.  "And  then?  There  is  no  'and  then.'  Merely  if 
you  have  a  reason — may  I  not,  as  an  old  friend, 
know  it?" 

Sallie  was  furious.  The  delicacy  of  his  appeal  was 
lost  upon  her.  She  was  tangled  up  in  the  intricacies 
of  a  problem  that  was  going  to  prove  odiously  ungrate- 
ful, and  there  was  no  rest  for  her  in  the  usual  haven  of 
"an  old  friend." 

"No,"  she  retorted  sharply.  "I  did  not  say  that  I 
had  any  reason.  You  said  it,  and  I  will  admit  it,  if 
only  to  let  the  matter  drop.  Do  stop  being  an  old 
friend,  Charlie.  The  only  excuse  for  old  friends  is, 
it  seems  to  me,  their  inquisitiveness.  They  feel  that 
they  must  know  everything;  that  they  have  a  perfect 
right  to  know  everything.  It  is  a  nuisance.  I  hate 
being  catechized  and  cross-examined  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  because  an  old  friend  wants  to  know.  It  is 
most  exasperating.  Be  anything — but  not  an  old 
friend." 

Sallie  was  sorry  the  instant  her  graceless  words  were 
spoken ;  she  was  sorry  because  she  disliked  the  idea 
of  personally  inflicting  pain  upon  anybody.  If  to  be 
"an  old  friend"  a  man  must  be  disinterested,  unselfish, 
consistently  devoted,  perpetually  watchful,  Charlie 
Covington  had  earned  the  right  to  be  called  one.  But 
Sallie  did  not  stop  to  realize  this.  The  treasures  at 
hand  are  not  always  the  treasures  that  appeal.  The 
halo  looks  best  at  a  distance. 

"Forgive  me,  Charlie,"  she  said,  as  she  saw  his  hand 
tremble.  "But  you  do  worry  a  fellow  so!  Don't 
you,  now?  I  didn't  mean  what  I  said  about  'an  old 
friend.'  At  least,  it  doesn't  apply  to  you.  I'm  frac- 
tious to-night,  and  out  of  sorts.  And  I  don't  want 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  151 

to  be  questioned.  Let  us  talk  of  something  more 
cheerful." 

He  was  anxious  to  humor  her  .  .  .  she  could  not 
guess  just  then  how  anxious.  In  some  things,  as  she 
knew,  he  was  almost  clairvoyant;  in  others  he  was  la- 
mentably obtuse.  This  annoyed  her,  as  the  combina- 
tion was  unusual,  and  often  unpleasant. 

"Before  you  came  into  Jack's  office  to-night,"  he 
said  lightly,  "he  had  just  been  confiding  in  me.  Good 
old  Jack!  I  don't  know  any  man  with  so  many  lov- 
able characteristics.  He  told  me  that  everything  at 
last  had  been  definitely  settled." 

Sallie  looked  at  him  in  odd  bewilderment.  As  she 
had  asked  him  to  change  the  conversation  to  some 
cheerful  topic,  this  was  probably  a  cheerful  topic.  But 
what  was  it?  And  just  for  one  moment — she  remem- 
bered this  afterward — she  did  not  want  to  know. 

"Yes,"  Charlie  went  on  amiably — at  the  adjoining 
table  they  were  drinking  champagne,  and  Sallie  heard 
shrieks  of  laughter — "you  know  it  has  been  a  sort  of 
tacitly  understood  thing  for  a  long  time.  The  aunt 
has  always  desired  it,  but  it  seemed  to  hang  fire,  you 
know.  Jack  is  such  an  indolent  boy,  and  so  dreadfully 
matter  of  fact.  But  the  other  night,  as  he  tells  me, 
things  came  to  a  head,  and  it  is  now  an  event  that  may 
be  discussed." 

"What  is  ?"  Sallie  could  hardly  hear  her  own  voice 
in  the  babel  of  noise  that  proceeded  from  the  rowdy 
table  near  her.  There  were  two  "ladies"  in  the  party. 
One  wore  a  very  bright  red  blouse.  Sallie  observed  all 
this,  and  seemed  to  be  absorbing  it  all,  as  though  her 
question  "What  is?"  did  not  genuinely  concern  her. 

"Why,  the  engagement,"  replied  Mr.  Covington. 
"Ivy  and  Jack.  Kind  friends  have  given  them  to  each 
other  for  years,  but,  positively,  I  think  that  Jack  was 


152  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

absolutely  too  lazy  to  pop  the  question,  and  settle  mat- 
ters. As  for  Ivy  .  .  .  well,  I've  always  considered 
her  a  pretty  little  icicle.  But  now  we  have  changed 
all  that.  I  suppose  that  he  will  tell  you  later.  Jack  is 
abominably  diffident,  and  I  think  he  has  a  kind  of  hor- 
ror of  the  news  getting  out  in  the  office.  He  told  me 
that  the  one  thing  in  the  world  he  has  always  dreaded 
was  a  silver  tea-set  from  the  staff,  or  a  loving-cup  with 
a  sentiment  on  it  .  .  ." 

The  woman  in  the  red  blouse  was  growing  so  ob- 
streperous that  the  proprietor  of  the  restaurant,  who 
was,  as  a  rule,  warranted  not  to  see  anything  until  it 
knocked  against  him,  came  up  and  made  a  few  pungent 
remarks.  Sallie's  eyes  were  riveted  upon  the  table  .  .  . 
Charlie's  words  sounded  like  the  murmur  of  a  phono- 
graph. She  felt  she  must  wait  until  he  ran  down,  and 
then — she  would  wind  him  up  again.  .  .  . 

"Aren't  you  listening,  Sallie?"  he  asked.  "Did  you 
know  this?" 

There  was  a  draught  blowing  in  from  an  open  win- 
dow. Sallie  shivered.  She  looked  pinched  with  cold. 
Her  hand  shook  as  she  lifted  a  glass  to  her  lips.  She 
sent  him  away  to  have  the  window  closed,  but  he  came 
back.  .  .  .  Windows  were  closed  so  quickly  nowadays. 
There  was  no  use  sending  anyone  off  to  close  a  win- 
dow, in  the  hope  that  the  process  would  be  laborious, 
and  would  keep  him  employed  for  hours  .  .  .  for  days. 
Sallie  drew  herself  together  with  an  effort. 

"How  quick  you  were,"  she  said,  and  she  smiled. 
"Thank  you.  Let  me  see,  you  were  saying  .  .  .  oh,  yes, 
about  Mr.  Childers.  No,  he  did  not  tell  me ;  but  per- 
haps, as  you  say,  he  felt  diffident.  He  thought  of  the 
silver  tea-set  to  which  I  might  contribute,  or  the  lov- 
ing-cup with  'God  Bless  Our  Home'  on  it." 

She  laughed  noisily,  and  the  sound  reminded  her  of 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


'53 


the  cachinnation  she  had  heard  from  the  woman  with 
the  red  blouse.  "But  one  must  give  something,  you 
know.  I  think  I'll  collect  my  criticisms  and  have  them 
bound  in  ivory,  chased  with  orange-blossoms.  Is — is 
— is  Ivy  a  very  nice  girl,  Charlie?  But  she  must  be. 
Do  you  know  her  ?" 

Charlie  Covington  looked  surprised  at  Sallie's  quick 
change  from  shiver  to  fever,  for  he  could  see  that  she 
was  burning.  Perhaps  she  was  ill,  but  .  .  . 

"I  have  met  her,"  he  replied.  "I  imagine  that  she 
is  a  very  charming  girl — very  guileless  and  ingenuous 
— the  sort  of  girl  before  whom  one  would  be  afraid  to 
say  'Boo!'  Mrs.  Hampton  has  brought  her  up  very 
carefully,  and  she  is  most  exclusive.  She  knows  no- 
body except  a  few  girl  friends.  I  was  quite  surprised 
at  the  reception  downtown  last  month  to  see  her  talk- 
ing with  Stuyvesant.  By  the  bye,  I  shall  always  think 
of  him  now  as  your  great  reportorial  subject — " 

"Don't,"  she  said  recklessly ;  and  he  thought,  for  the 
first  time,  that  she  looked  old  and  care-streaked.  Per- 
haps she  was  on  the  verge  of  a  fever  or  of  something 
dangerous.  She  looked  changed. 

"I  was  joking,  Sallie,"  he  declared  tenderly.  "I 
should  hate  to  think  of  Stuyvesant  as  anybody's  sub- 
ject. Why  was  I  alluding  to  him  ?  Oh,  I  was  saying 
that  Ivy  Hampton  is  so  exclusive  that  I  was  surprised 
to  see  her  talking  with  Stuyvesant.  .  .  ." 

"The  matinee  girl  knows  no  barriers,"  she  said,  with 
a  dim  smile.  "The  most  exclusive  maiden  thaws  for 
a  moment  in  the  sun  of  a  favorite  actor.  Is  Ivy  ...  is 
Miss  Hampton  good?" 

He  laughed.  "Good  as  they  are  made,"  he  as- 
serted. "A  perfect  little  Puritan.  Jack  himself  has 
often  told  me  that  he  was  positively  afraid  of  her. 
Why — forgive  me,  Sallie,  but  it's  the  'old  friend'  again 


154  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

— he  wouldn't  even  dare  to  let  her  read  your  criticisms. 
Isn't  it  funny  ?  And  Jack's  so  different." 

Sallie  sat  there  wondering.  What  a  relief  it  would 
be  if  she  should  discover  later  on  that  everything  she 
had  heard  to-day  was  .  .  .  something  else!  If  she 
could  but  be  drugged  into  some  such  certainty !  What 
an  escape  it  would  be  from  a  tortuously  horrible  night- 
mare! And  again  her  intuition  came  from  its  lair, 
luminous  as  a  shaft  of  light.  It  was  useless  to  buoy 
herself  up  with  false  hopes.  She  knew  .  .  . 

Charlie  Covington  was  half-way  through  the  speech 
that  followed  this  before  she  heard  him. 

"Sallie,"  he  said,  "I've  been  thinking  it  over  for  a 
long  time,  but  I  never  spoke  to  you  before,  because — 
well,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  you  have  some  sort 
of  a  career  ahead  of  you,  and  I  thought  it  would  be 
rather  brutal  for  me  to  interfere  with  it.  But — but — 
all  this  talk  about  Jack  and  Ivy  is  contagious.  It  makes 
its  own  appeal.  And,  as  you  are  launching  forth  into 
a  kind  of  work  that  will  lead  to  nothing  but  chagrin, 
disgust,  and  disappointment — ah,  I  know  it  so  well, 
Sallie — I  can't  help  thinking  that  I  need  be  silent  no 
longer.  We  have  known  each  other  a  long  time, 
haven't  we?  You  have  liked  me  .  .  .  don't  you  think 
you  have,  Sallie?  You  do  like  me?  Would  you — 
would  you — follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Jack  Childers 
and  Ivy  Hampton  ?  I  love  you,  and  I  can't  flatter  my- 
self that  I  have  concealed  it.  I've  tried  to  put  the  feel- 
ing aside  and  to  believe  that  you,  Sallie,  had  other  aims 
in  life  than  marriage.  But  you  haven't,  have  you? 
Won't  you  come  and  redeem  my  lonely  bachelor  life — 
for  I'm  getting  on,  my  dear,  and  am  growing  horribly 
bachelory.  Won't  you  help  me  out,  and  leave  this 
work,  and  this  newspaper  turmoil,  and  this  association 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  155 

with  horrors,  and  all  this  fag  of  night  work,  forever? 
Will  you,  Sallie?  Do  say  yes." 

For  a  moment  she  felt  inclined  to  say :  "Won't  you 
please  let  me  hear  it  all  over  again?"  She  had  really 
absorbed  so  little  of  it;  but  of  course  she  had  heard 
quite  enough.  Besides,  it  would  be  quite  heartless  to 
make  him  repeat  a  speech  that  was  deliciously  impro- 
vised, and  .  .  .  well  .  .  .  she  was  probably  quite  heart-, 
less ;  still,  she  would  not  descend  to  such  cruelty. 

She  was  surprised  to  find  that  she  was  perfectly  un- 
ruffled, and  quite  as  composed  as  she  had  been  while 
watching  the  woman  with  the  red  blouse.  That  per- 
fect lady  was  quite  quiet  now. 

"It  is  good  of  you,  Charlie,"  she  said  affably,  "to 
throw  yourself  at  me,  poor  spinster.  I  wish  I  could 
say  yes.  It  would  really  be  so  nice.  But  I  can't,  old 
chap.  I'm  not  the  marrying  sort.  You  know  that.  I 
suppose  I'm  incorrigible,  and  that  I  really  like — though 
I  pretend  I  don't — all  the  excitement  and  worry  of 
Newspaper  Row.  I  should  be  a  hideous  thing  in 
wives,  and  quite  mercenary.  I  told  Mr.  Childers  the 
other  day  that  if  I  ever  captured  anybody  willing  to 
pay  my  rent,  I  would  never  show  myself  again  in  the 
vicinity  of  Newspaper  Row.  I  also  said  that  the  wo- 
man who  invented  earning  her  own  living  ought  to  be 
compelled  to  do  it  through  eternity.  I  said  some  very 
weary,  discontented  things,  I  remember.  Perhaps  I 
thought  them  at  that  moment.  I  think  I  did,  for  we 
were  talking  about  Anastasia  Atwood,  who  was  sit- 
ting alone  at  Mouquin's,  while  she  owned  a  real  hus- 
band. At  this  moment,  Charlie,  those  are  not  my  sen- 
timents. Thank  you,  old  man.  Did  you  really  mean 
it?" 

He  did  not  answer  her,  but  called  the  waiter  for  the 
bill,  added  it  with  elaborate  and  conscientious  care, 


156  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  lighted  a  cigarette.  Then  he  helped  her  on  with 
her  jacket,  waited  while  she  buttoned  it,  and  walked 
with  her  to  the  street. 

Her  temporary  jauntiness  had  left  her,  and  she  felt 
as  if  to  scream  would  be  the  acme  of  joy.  But  she  did 
not  scream.  His  silence  jarred  her,  and  they  walked 
through  the  deserted  streets  until  they  reached  her 
house,  without  uttering  a  word.  Then  he  asked  her  if 
she  had  the  key,  and  she  waved  it  in  front  of  him.  She 
wished  that  he  would  say  something,  and  would  gladly 
have  done  so  herself.  But  she  could  think  of  nothing 
that  would  fit  the  situation,  which  was  embarrassing. 
His  voice  was  suave  as  usual  as  he  said  good-night,  and 
she  ran  up  the  steps  and  left  him. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

N  my  young  days,"  said  Mrs.  Hampton,  hark- 
ing amiably  back  to  former  times,  with  the 
archaeological  diffidence  so  popular  with  ma- 
ture ladies  possessing  moral  minds — "in  my 
young  days  girls  were  less  apathetic  than  they  seem  to 
be  to-day.  It  was  never  considered  bad  form  to  show 
a  little  enthusiasm,  some  slight  symptom  of  excite- 
ment, a  certain  degree  of  pardonable  pride,  when  an 
eminently  satisfactory  engagement  was  made  public. 
But  you,  my  dear  Ivy — -well,  it  seems  scarcely  possible 
to  realize  that  anything  has  occurred.  And  yet — it 
was  what  we  all  wanted,  what  we  all  expected.  It  is 
extremely  gratifying,  even  though  it  may  not  be  start- 
ling or  wonderful." 

Ivy  Hampton  stood  looking  out  of  the  window  of 
the  apartment  in  Central  Park  West,  and  beating  a 
monotonous  tattoo  on  the  window-pane.  Her  pose 
was  careless  and  unstudied,  and  the  girlish  outline  of 
her  figure  appealed  picturesquely  to  Mrs.  Hampton. 
The  last  of  a  bevy  of  "girl  friends"  to  whom  she  had 
been  serving  afternoon  tea  had  just  disappeared,  and 
Miss  Hampton  felt  slightly  fatigued.  Every  detail  of 
her  engagement  to  Jack  Childers  had  been  thoroughly 
threshed  out,  and  she  was  rather  tired  of  the  subject. 
How  they  had  all  gossiped,  and  chattered,  and  frivolled, 
and  what  a  wealth  of  congratulation  they  had  show- 
ered upon  her !  They  were  easy,  innocent,  amiable  lit- 
tle girls,  and  the  idea  that  this  little  gray  Puritan,  with 
the  shining  silver-gold  hair,  was  really  about  to  settle 
into  austere  matronhood,  interested  them.  It  was  an 


158  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

event  that  has  never  yet  failed  to  say  things — and  to 
whisper  others — to  the  youthful  feminine  heart.  Ivy 
was  such  a  delightfully  prim  and  quaint  young  person. 
They  were  afraid  to  say  too  much  to  her,  for  she  wore 
her  maidenhood  so  persistently  and  with  so  much  pic- 
torial display.  Her  "reluctant  feet"  seemed  to  be  un- 
budging.  They  could  not  imagine  those  feet  trotting 
nimbly  into  the  eternal  circle  of  marriage.  Ivy  was  so 
absolutely  unemotional,  such  an  unyielding  little  ice- 
berg, that  they  hesitated  at  lavishing  upon  her  their 
sly,  girl-simple,  winking  innuendos. 

She  had  poured  out  tea  for  them,  and  sat,  idly  diffi- 
dent, listening  to  their  coy  suggestions.  Mrs.  Hamp- 
ton rose  to  the  occasion,  and  frankly  admitted  her 
pleasure.  It  was  a  relief  to  her  to  know  that  Ivy's 
future  was  arranged  with  such  admirable  precision  and 
certainty,  and  although  the  girl's  apathy  surprised  her, 
she  was  not  entirely  displeased  at  it ;  for  was  it  not  the 
result  of  perfect  education,  distinct  good  breeding,  and 
an  excellent  bringing  up?  Everything  that  Ivy  did 
had  the  unmistakable  cachet  of  the  gentlewoman. 
This  lack  of  enthusiasm  was  not  poetic,  or  romantic,  or 
inspiring,  but  it  was  quite  irreproachable.  Fireworks 
were  for  Sarah  Jane,  and  untrammelled  joy  on  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage  was,  if  not  positively  indecent,  at  least 
an  indication  of  a  Family  Herald  mind. 

So  Mrs.  Hampton  was  not  at  all  dissatisfied  with  the 
afternoon  tea  and  its  horde  of  guileless,  congratulatory 
girls.  It  was  only  after  their  departure  that  she  felt 
moved  to  comment  upon  Ivy's  somewhat  lack-lustre 
deportment.  Miss  Hampton  continued  to  drum  upon 
the  window-pane  and  to  watch  the  loiterers  in  Central 
Park  directly  opposite. 

"I  don't  know  if  you  hear  me,  Ivy,"  Mrs.  Hampton 
went  on  somewhat  impatiently.  "I  was  saying  that  in 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  159 

my  young  days,  even  a  gentlewoman  was  quite  justi- 
fied in  betraying  a  note  or  two  of  legitimate  satisfac- 
tion when  her  engagement  was  made  public." 

Ivy  turned  from  the  window,  and  walked  with  her 
slow,  listless  grace  into  the  room. 

"There  is  nothing  to  be  wildly  excited  about,"  she 
said  drawlingly.  "Jack  is  not  a  gay  cavalier  who  has 
ridden  into  the  field  to  win  me  at  the  sword's  point. 
We've  known  each  other  all  our  lives.  Our  inter- 
course has  been  flavored  by  the  certain  knowledge  that 
one  of  these  days  we  should  surely  marry.  You've 
known  it;  I've  known  it;  he  has  known  it.  It  is  very 
pleasant,  of  course,  because  I  know  him  so  well. 
There  is  little  to  learn.  Even  frequent  uncertainties, 
such  as  whether  he  likes  his  meat  cooked  rare  or 
brown,  his  eggs  soft  or  hard,  his  potatoes  fried  or 
boiled,  are  out  of  the  question.  It  is  all  very  happy, 
but  not  at  all  stirring,  is  it?  You  see,  I  know  him  so 
well." 

Perhaps  Mrs.  Hampton  felt  that  the  apathy  of  the 
gentlewoman  went  a  few  inches  too  far,  but  she  did  not 
say  so.  She  continued  : 

"But  the  cap,  my  dear  Ivy,  fits  both  ways.  You 
know  Jack  so  well  and  so  completely  that  you  cannot 
possibly  go  wrong.  And  he  can  lay  claim  to  the  same 
legitimately  acquired  knowledge.  He  also  knows 
you." 

Ivy  looked  far  across  the  Park,  where  some  children 
were  scampering  away  their  juvenile  energies.  She 
could  not,  however,  repress  a  smile  as  she  heard  Mrs. 
Hampton's  words. 

"Do  you  think  I  am  complex?"  she  asked.  Like 
most  .people  with  mental  or  physical  warp,  she  loved 
discussing  herself,  and  listening  to  the  best  or  to  the 
worst — it  did  not  much  matter  which.  Miss  Hamp- 


160  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ton  belonged  to  the  enormous  class  of  self-epicures 
who  haunt  the  rooms  of  palmists  and  mind-readers 
and  card-manipulators,  direly  anxious  to  hear  what 
they  may  of  themselves,  from  the  lips  of  others. 

"No,  my  dear,''  replied  Mrs.  Hampton,  with  fat 
unction.  "  You  are  as  legible  as  a  book — more  legible 
than  a  good  many,  I  think.  I  fancy  I  know  every 
thought  that  passes  through  your  mind.  I  believe — 
although  I  am  not  sure — that  while  you  do  not  love 
Jack  as  fervently  as  cook  seems  to  love  that  annoying 
policeman  (by  the  bye,  Ivy,  the  joint  of  beef  we  had 
for  dinner  last  night  has  dwindled  down  to  a  mere 
bone),  yet — yet  you  are  sincerely  attached  to  him  in 
your  own  little  Puritan  way." 

"Jack  is  a  good  fellow,"  said  Ivy,  with  a  sigh.  She 
would  have  said  the  same  thing  of  the  annoying  police- 
man. Good  fellows  were  enviable  institutions  in  a 
world  that  occasionally  wagged  laboriously.  But  they 
did  not  stir  the  pulses,  or  quicken  the  emotions,  or  cast 
rosy  lights  upon  the  monotony  of  the  landscape.  They 
were  comfortable  pieces  of  furniture,  with  no  rough 
edges,  and  as  a  general  thing  they  could  be  folded  up 
and  put  aside. 

"He  will  be  an  ideal  husband,"  resumed  Mrs. 
Hampton  complacently.  "He  is  so  easy-going,  so 
courteous,  so  good-natured.  I  can't  think  of  any  man 
with  so  many  really  lovable  characteristics.  Every- 
body says  that.  There  is  a  marvellous  unanimity  of 
opinion.  You  are  a  lucky  girl,  Ivy,  and  I  foresee  a 
wedded  life  without  a  ripple  or  murmur  of  discontent. 
After  all,  a  calm  and  equable  man  is  a  great  boon.  It 
is  something  to  know  that,  in  the  matter  of  pursuits, 
you  can  go  your  way  and  he  can  go  his." 

There  was  a  quick  gleam  in  Ivy's  eyes  which  Mrs. 
Hampton  did  not  see.  "You  can  go  your  way  and 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  161 

he  can  go  his."  It  sounded  very  facile  and  pleasing. 
If  it  could  only  be ! 

Mrs.  Hampton  was  perplexed,  in  spite  of  the  brav- 
ery of  her  words.  Inherited  sentiment  still  had  a 
vague  place  in  her  heart,  although  she  tried  so  hard — 
and  sometimes,  alas !  so  unsuccessfully — to  ape  the 
conditions  of  the  "modern"  neurasthenic  "society" 
that  she  so  ardently  admired.  She  knew  that  many 
things  came  after  marriage — generally  children,  for 
progeny  was  still  a  post-matrimonial  affair,  even  in 
the  most  exclusive  circles — but  she  could  not  quite 
place  love  in  the  same  category.  She  had  been 
brought  up  to  look  upon  love  as  the  cause,  and  not 
the  effect,  and  it  was  hard  to  rearrange  these  little  de- 
tails. Yet  Ivy  was  extremely  good  form.  .  .  .  There 
was  no  doubt  about  that.  .  .  .  There  was  no  need 
to  worry  about  the  fossilized  notions  of  mere  tra- 
dition. .  .  . 

"I  may  not  be  back  to  dinner,  Ivy,"  she  said  pres- 
ently, after  a  fatiguing  bout  of  silence  that  had  tried 
her  nerves  very  severely.  Nobody  that  she  had  ever 
met  could  remain  so  provokingly  silent  as  Ivy.  "I 
promised  to  see  Mrs.  Ogden  who  is  ill.  If  she  asks  me 
to  stay,  I  shall  do  so.  You  will  not  be  unduly  deso- 
late, for  I  imagine  that  you  do  not  care  to  talk." 

Ivy  yawned.  "No,"  she  said,  stretching  herself. 
"I  really  exhausted  the  engagement  topic  this  after- 
noon. And  I  know,  dear,  that  you  could  discuss  noth- 
ing else.  Go  and  see  Mrs.  Ogden.  I  may  take  a 
stroll,  just  to  remove  the  cobwebs.  An  afternoon  tea 
is  so  dreadfully  exhausting,  isn't  it  ?  One  says  so  much 
and  so  little." 

She  watched  Mrs.  Hampton's  departure  with  a  non- 
chalance that  seemed  a  trifle  exaggerated.  She  could 
have  rampaged  around  the  immaculate  apartment  in  a 


1 62  A   Girl  Who  Wrote 

fever  of  impatience.  Outwardly,  however,  she  was 
indifferent,  apathetic,  tired.  She  even  took  up  a  book 
labelled  "Golden  Thoughts"  and  pretended  to  read 
it.  She  held  it  upside  down — which  was  quite 
thoughtless — but  Mrs.  Hampton,  fussily  preparing  for 
her  outing,  did  not  notice  the  proceeding.  How  slow 
she  was !  First  the  bonnet  .  .  .  then  the  jacket  .  .  . 
then  its  hooks  .  .  .  then  her  handkerchief  .  .  .  and 
the  keys,  had  she  forgotten  them?  .  .  .  Oh,  and 
be  sure  and  tell  the  dressmaker  when  she  called  that 
Monday  would  do  ...  and  keep  the  chain  on  the 
door  .  .  .  and  Susan  could  go  out  after  she  had  pre- 
pared Ivy's  dinner.  .  .  .  Would  it  never  end?  Ivy 
fumed,  and  fretted,  and  bit  her  lip,  and  felt  that  she 
would  like  to  eat  "Golden  Thoughts,"  to  chew  it  vi- 
ciously. 

The  front  door  closed,  and  Ivy  waited  for  the  in- 
evitable return  to  say  unimportant  things  that  had  been 
forgotten.  Mrs.  Hampton  generally  discovered  five 
minutes  after  departure  that  she  had  forgotten  some- 
thing— usually  the  keys  that  she  never  by  any  chance 
needed.  Ivy  went  to  the  window  and  watched  the  re- 
spectable black  velvet  bonnet  fading  into  the  distance. 
She  was  free  at  last. 

Her  hands  trembled  so,  that  she  could  scarcely  don 
her  hat  and  coat.  The  "reluctancy"  of  her  demeanor 
vanished  quickly,  for  there  was  nobody  there  to  admire 
it.  Her  face  sharpened ;  even  the  discretion  of  her 
respiration  seemed  to  be  discarded  for  something  more 
febrile. 

"I  sha'n't  be  long,  Susan,"  she  called  out  nervously. 
"You  can  go  out.  I  shall  not  need  dinner;  if  I  do,  I 
can  find  what  I  want." 

In  the  pocket  of  her  jacket  was  a  black  gauze  veil. 
She  felt  eagerly  to  see  if  it  were  there.  Then  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  163 

sauntered  forth — quite  leisurely.  She  seemed  to  be 
out  for  the  purpose  of  "getting  the  air,"  and  she  even 
stood  for  a  few  moments,  as  though  to  decide  upon  the 
direction  that  her  aimless  promenade  should  take.  After 
which,  she  apparently  made  up  her  mind.  She  cut 
across  Central  Park,  quickening  her  footsteps,  as  the 
West  Side  was  speedily  left  in  the  background. 

Once  she  met  one  of  Mrs.  Hampton's  annoyingly 
loquacious  friends,  and  was  obliged  to  stop  and  talk  to 
her.  As  she  did  so,  she  noticed  a  girl  on  the  other  side 
of  the  street,  who  stopped  at  the  same  time.  The  girl 
was  heavily  muffled  up,  and  plainly  dressed;  in  fact, 
there  was  nothing  in  her  appearance  that  would  attract 
a  moment's  attention.  Ivy  looked  at  her  simply  be- 
cause she  needed  something  to  look  at  while  she  was 
waiting  for  the  ultra-eloquent  old  crony  to  finish  her 
apparently  interminable  cackle.  She  had  forgotten  the 
girl  when  she  was  able  to  move  on  again.  At  Third 
Avenue,  she  entered  a  small  shop  and  bought  some 
hairpins,  using  them  to  fasten  on  the  gauze  veil. 
When  she  emerged  from  the  shop,  she  saw  the  same 
girl  staring  stupidly  in  at  the  window,  evidently 
lost  in  admiration  of  a  "marked  down"  display  of  cor- 
sets. 

Ivy  felt  that  such  vulgar  details  were  rather  beyond 
the  situation  just  at  present.  She  was  nearing  her 
destination,  and,  crossing  Third  Avenue,  reached  a 
placid  little  bourgeois  apartment  house,  marked  "Five 
rooms  and  bath.  Elegantly  appointed."  She  opened 
the  door  with  a  key  and  entered,  just  as  the  sombre 
girl  whom  she  had  previously  noticed  came  up  and 
eagerly  scanned  the  names  on  the  door-bells — Mc- 
Nally,  Silverman,  Compton,  Rivington,  Lambwell. 

Ivy  went  upstairs,  and  with  another  key  opened  the 
door  of  the  apartment.  It  was  one  of  the  small,  piti- 


164  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ful  make-shifts  in  which  New  Yorkers  immure  them- 
selves, and  occasionally  call  "home."  There  was  a 
"parlor,"  a  dining-room,  two  bed-rooms  (so-called), 
a  kitchen,  and  a  bath-room.  All  were  dark  but 
the  parlor  and  the  kitchen.  But  as  Ivy  entered 
and  surveyed  it,  an  expression  of  keen  exultation 
spread  over  her  face.  It  was  hers.  This  was  her 
temple,  and  what  did  its  material  accessories  matter? 
The  parlor  was  sparsely  furnished,  but  it  was  pretty, 
and  it  was  highly  decorated.  It  was  a  resting-place 
for  the  sole  of  her  foot.  She  removed  her  hat  and 
coat,  and  threw  them  aside. 

She  rocked  herself  in  the  one  armchair,  and  sat  there 
thinking  and  smiling,  her  Puritanism  cast  aside,  the 
"reluctant  maiden"  ousted,  and  in  their  place  the  wom- 
an who  doesn't  care,  and  who  defies  the  conventions. 
The  "afternoon  tea"  girls  who  had  chirped  to  her  of 
her  engagement  a  couple  of  hours  ago  would  scarcely 
have  recognized  her  now,  so  completely  was  the  ex- 
pression of  her  features  changed  by  the  tide  of  different 
ideas  that  swept  across  them.  In  this  apartment  house 
lived  people  who  were  "really  good,"  as  Mrs.  Hampton 
would  say,  and  Ivy  smiled  as  she  pondered  over  the 
situation.  "Goodness"  came  to  them  naturally,  and 
was  quite  easy.  As  she  sat  there  rocking,  she  hoped 
that  when  her  time  came  to  be  "good"  the  surround- 
ings would  be  more  alluring.  Suppose  that  Jack  Child- 
ers  should  bring  her  to  a  place  like  this !  The  sup- 
position led  her  very  much  farther  east,  to  where  the 
river  was  deep  and  tranquil. 

A  key  clicked  in  the  lock,  the  door  was  thrown 
open,  and  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  his  collar  turned  up,  and 
his  hat  turned  down,  entered. 

"At  last!"  she  cried.  "I  thought  you  would  never 
come.  I  imagined  that  I,  too,  should  never  get  here. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  165 

I  had  a  tiresome  tea — a  hen-fight,  as  you  would  call  it 
— and  they  stayed  eternally.  Arthur!" 

He  held  her  in  his  arms,  and  kissed  the  silver-gold 
hair  that  was  knotted  at  the  back  of  her  head.  She 
helped  him  to  remove  his  overcoat,  and  hung  it  up  in 
the  hall. 

"Ivy,"  he  said  presently,  "I  am  afraid  that  this 
game  is  up.  My  wife  has  discovered  something. 
Somebody  saw  us  together,  or,  at  any  rate,  saw  me,  for 
you  were  saved  by  your  veil.  We  had  a  most  exas- 
perating scene,  and  what  the  upshot  will  be,  goodness 
knows." 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  room  in  genuinely  seri- 
ous dismay.  The  tongue  of  gossip  that  had  wagged 
vaguely  for  so  long  now  had  definite  food.  He  saw 
his  Waterloo. 

Ivy  turned  a  shade  paler,  not  at  thoughts  of  possible 
publicity,  but  at  the  grim  suggestion  that  this  drama 
of  her  life  was  in  danger. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  she  asked  defiantly. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "This  kind  of  thing  would  ruin 
me.  I  have  never  yet  figured  in  any  tangible  sort  of 
scandal,  and  you  know  the  public.  It  likes  to  believe 
indefinitely  that  an  actor  is  a  gay  Lothario,  but  any- 
thing definite  .  .  .  and  good-bye.  My  wife,  who 
has  very  fixed  ideas,  would  not  hesitate  to  drag  me  into 
the  divorce  court.  In  fact,  she  spoke  of  it.  My  only 
hope  lies  in  the  fact  that  she  really  does — did — love 
me.  And  there  is  the  boy.  .  .  .  Poor  thing!  .  .  . 
I  can't  help  feeling  sorry." 

"Your  wife — your  wife — always,  always,  always!" 
cried  Ivy,  ferociously.  "You  din  her  into  my  ears. 
You  talk  of  her  as  though  she  were  the  inevitable. 
You  cannot  forget  her — you  will  not  forget  her.  I 
have  told  you  that  I  hate  to  hear  her  mentioned,  but 


1 66  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

you  cannot  refrain.  Perhaps  you  are  remorseful,  or 
penitent,  or  ashamed.  Why?  Can't  a  man  have  the 
courage  of  his  convictions?  Do  I  care?  Would  I 
balk  even  at  a  scandal?  Am  I  frightened  or  dis- 
turbed? I  have  no  patience  with  you,  Arthur.  You 
do  not  love  me." 

She  flung  herself  into  his  arms,  and  burst  into  petu- 
lant tears.  The  tie  that  bound  him  was  always 
flaunted  before  her,  and  she  could  not  respect  it,  nor 
could  she  understand  why  it  played  such  a  leading 
role  in  his  life.  Her  morality  was  as  light  as  her  hair, 
but  not  as  picturesque. 

"Do  I  worry  you  with  trivialities?"  she  asked  at 
last,  as  she  saw  that  her  tears  had  not  been  quite  in- 
effective. "If  I  did,  I  could  tell  you  that  my  engage- 
ment to  Jack  Childers  has  just  been  sanctioned  in  the 
most  respectable  and  legitimate  way.  I  do  not  like  it, 
but  I  do  not  come  here  and  tease  you  about  such  mat- 
ters. I  submit  to  it  all,  and  I  submit  to  it  more  for 
your  sake  than  for  my  own." 

He  looked  at  her,  and  for  a  moment  was  bewildered. 
He  knew  that  women  would  do  anything,  brave  any- 
thing for  love,  in  its  variations  and  aberrations.  But 
this  tigerish  attachment  surely  went  beyond  limits  pre- 
scribed or  non-prescribed.  It  amazed  him.  Though 
what  she  told  him  was  not  unexpected,  still — as  she 
told  it — it  was  astonishing.  Even  to  his  corrupted 
mind,  it  seemed  rather  horrible.  But  he  could  not 
tell  her  so.  A  man  cannot  tell  a  woman  who  does 
outre  things  for  his  sake,  that  it  is  horrible.  Nor  can 
he  read  her  a  lesson.  He  had  a  detestation  of  illicit 
love  that  ended  in  preachiness,  as  it  so  often  did. 

"Ivy,"  he  said,  "you  are  a"  (he  was  going  to  say 
"noble,"  but  the  idea  was  too  paradoxical)  "brave 
girl.  What  would  you  advise  me  to  do?" 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  167 

She  looked  at  him,  and  he  knew  that  there  was  con- 
tempt in  her  eyes.  "I  cannot  advise  you,"  she  de- 
clared. "I  do  not  know  your — your  wife.  Ah,  you 
force  me  to  say  it — you  force  me  to  say  it!  Those 
words,  'your  wife,'  burn  me,  scorch  my  lips.  You 
force  me  to  utter  them.  You  are  so  weak,  so  coward- 
ly !  What  do  I  advise  you  to  do — I,  I,  I  ?  Would  you 
like  me  to  see  her,  and  beg  her  to  be  lenient?  Shall  I 
tell  her  how  I  love  you?  Ah,  you  wouldn't  mind.  If 
you  thought  that  it  would  settle  things,  you  would  let 
me  go  to  her.  I  advise  you  what  to  do?  I — I  can't. 
I  love  you.  I  don't  know.  why.  I  can't  think  up  all 
these  things.  They  have  not  occurred  to  me.  You 
have  had  to  deal  with  other  kinds  of  women  who  knew 
these  situations  by  heart.  I  don't." 

He  was  shocked.  This  was  a  tigress,  unreasoning, 
illogical — and  not  a  girl.  There  was  something  prim- 
itive, and  savage,  in  such  untrammelled  emotion.  It 
was  also  quite  new,  but  ...  it  appealed  to  him. 
She  was  right.  The  women  he  had  met  were  the  fur- 
tive, clandestine  things  without  the  courage  of  con- 
viction, and,  probably,  without  conviction.  He  had 
come  to  the  pied-a-terre  to-day  with  the  determina- 
tion to  relinquish  it  and  flout  the  gossipers.  He  had 
no  ideas  for  the  future — and  though  it  annoyed  him  to 
end  everything,  he  was  quite  prepared  to  do  it.  He 
knew  that  her  devotion  to  him  was  something  quite  out 
of  the  ordinary,  but — ah,  how  little  he,  with  his  vast 
knowledge  of  women,  knew  her ! — he  had  believed  that 
the  mere  idea  of  discovery  would  affright  her.  It 
meant  so  much  to  her,  or,  at  least,  he  supposed  so. 
Arthur  Stuyvesant  was  puzzled.  His  nature  was  a  vac- 
illating one ;  but,  just  the  same,  he  had  no  intention  of 
allowing  this  entanglement  to  foreshadow  his  ruin. 
Something  must  be  done.  Vague  thoughts  flitted 


1 68  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

through  his  mind.  His  wife  must  be  appeased.  At 
any  rate,  any  further  appeal  to  Miss  Hampton  was  out 
of  the  question. 

"Come  here,  Ivy,"  he  said  gently;  and  as  she  came 
to  him,  he  took  her  hand.  "I  won't  discuss  this  mat- 
ter with  you  any  more.  I'll  think,  if  I  can,  what  we 
had  better  do.  You  see,  I  am  considering  you  just 
as  much  as — myself." 

"You  need  not,"  she  said;  but  she  was  mollified, 
"because  I  really  don't  care.  What  you  call  the  worst 
does  not  frighten  me.  It  would  not  kill  me  to  say 
good-bye  to  Mrs.  Hampton — a  step-mother  is  not  an 
irreparable  loss — and  as  to  breaking  with  Jack,  I 
should  get  over  it  nicely.  Say  that  you  will  come  here 
just  the  same,  if  only  occasionally.  We  can  be  care- 
ful; I  always  am.  It  is  you — you  who  are  care- 
less. .  .  .  Say  you  will  come  here.  Say  it,  Arthur — 
say  it." 

She  rose,  and  stood  before  him,  looking  down  into 
his  eyes.  In  the  very  shadow  of  clouds  that  might 
fatally  obscure  his  brightest  prospects,  he  gave  her  the 
requisite  promise.  He  would  be  careful.  .  .  .  He 
had  a  dim  recollection  of  having  "talked"  the  other 
night  when  he  was  not  quite  himself.  He  had  given 
the  situation  away;  but  she  need  not  know  that.  He 
would  come  out  of  this  tangle  as  he  had  come  out  of 
others.  He  would  avoid  that  mysterious  process 
known  as  "borrowing  trouble."  ...  In  spite  of 
which  promised  restraint,  trouble  loomed  up  before 
him. 

In  the  meantime,  the  girl  downstairs,  confronted 
with  the  puzzle  of  the  names  in  the  door,  had  carefully 
examined  them  all.  She  had  seen  both  Ivy  Hampton 
and  Arthur  Stuyvesant  enter,  but  they  had  let  them- 
selves in  with  a  key,  and  she  could  not  tell  whether 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  169 

they  were  McNally,  Silverman,  Compton,  Rivington, 
or  Lamb  well.  She  rather  inclined  to  McNally,  as 
there  seemed  to  be  safety  in  the  multitude  of  Mc- 
Nallys.  She  felt  feverish  and  oppressed,  for  she  was 
muffled  to  the  ears.  She  had  never  been  in  this  neigh- 
borhood before,  and  was  therefore  not  afraid  of  recog- 
nition; so  she  gave  herself  the  necessary  ventilation, 
and  emerged,  not  as  Sallie  Sydenham,  critic,  but  as 
Sallie  Sydenham,  detective. 

That  day,  and  other  days,  she  had  devoted  to  the 
almost  hopeless  task  of  tracking  Ivy  Hampton  to  her 
reported  lair.  She  wondered  what  Mr.  Green  would 
think  of  her  reportorial  acumen,  for  she  had  worked 
without  the  ghost  of  a  clue — waiting  till  she  was  blue 
in  the  face ;  till  her  feet  were  cramped  and  numb ;  till 
she  ached  for  movement  and  activity — waiting  for  a 
girl  to  emerge  from  a  house,  to  go — anywhere  or  no- 
where. 

It  had  been  a  galling,  and  a  most  humiliating  job. 
She  wondered  if  this  were  the  kind  of  thing  that  re- 
porters did  for  money,  and  what  they  would  consider 
adequate  payment  for  this  atrophy  of  self-respect,  for 
this  odious,  grovelling,  loathsome  work. 

She  could  scarcely  imagine  mere  pecuniary  recom- 
pense in  such  a  case.  It  seemed  to  her  to  be  outside 
the  pale  of  human  possibility.  No  wonder  that  Mr. 
Green  had  tried  to  wet-blanket  her  aspirations.  But, 
of  course,  he  thought  it  was  a  consideration  allied  unto 
"treasury  day."  She  paused  for  a  moment  before 
taking  the  next  step,  and  uttered  a  sigh  of  relief.  She 
had  discovered,  beyond  the  peradventure  of  a  doubt, 
that  old  Witherby's  story  was  true.  She  had  un- 
earthed the  rendezvous,  and  the  mysterious  lady  who 
had  been  no  mystery  to  her,  was  identified  in  a  legiti- 
mately evidential  manner.  There  was  no  doubt  any 


170  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

longer,  and  her  evidence  would  be  satisfactory  any- 
where. She  felt  like  a  ghoul  as  she  thought  of  these 
things.  Horrible  as  they  were,  they  were  preferable 
to  the  picture  of  Jack  Childers — her  amiable,  chival- 
rous, charming  associate  (she  was  entitled  to  call  him 
"associate"),  chained  downtown  by  his  duties,  while 
this  girl,  whom  he  loved,  and  who  looked  so  young  and 
pretty  and  ingenuous,  was  .  .  .  No,  she  could  not 
dwell  upon  it.  It  was  too  harrowing. 

She  descended  a  flight  of  clammy,  grimy  steps  into 
the  janitorial  department,  and  a  thin,  fair-haired 
woman  came  to  her,  with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  another 
at  her  skirts,  and — three — four — five — behind  her,  in 
the  squalor  of  a  room  that  reeked  with  the  smell  of 
onions.  She  talked  in  an  evil  German  dialect  that  was 
ugly  enough  to  hear,  and  too  unprofitable  to  reproduce. 

"The  house  is  full,"  she  said.  "The  last  apart- 
ment was  rented  last  week." 

Sallie  tried  to  look  vexed,  and  was  not  quite  sure 
how  to  proceed.  Janitors  and  janitresses  are  gener- 
ally suspicious,  as  it  is  the  sole  relaxation  of  their 
pulseless  lives.  She  did  not  want  to  seem  unduly  in- 
quisitive. 

"I'm  sorry,"  Sallie  remarked.  "I  like  the  look  of 
the  place.  I've  been  hunting  for  an  apartment  in 
which  I  can  be  quiet.  Children  make  so  much  noise, 
don't  they?" 

It  was  scarcely  a  diplomatic  remark.  The  janitress, 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  her  poor  little  cubs,  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  agree  with  "the  lady." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "We  can't  kill  'em 
off.  In  some  flats,  I  know,  they  won't  have  children. 
Those  landlords  ought  to  be  flogged.  What  are  peo- 
ple to  do?" 

"Are  there  many  children  in — in — in  this  apart- 
ment?" 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote    •  171 

The  janitress  looked  triumphant.  "Yes,  there  are," 
she  said  loudly.  "So,  if  you  are  looking  for  a  place 
without  'em,  it's  just  as  well  we  are  all  rilled  up.  They 
all  have  children  here — the  McNallys  seven,  and  one 
on  the  way ;  the  Silvermans  four ;  the  Rivingtons  six, 
and  the  Lamb  wells  five.  Oh,  I'm  forgetting  the  Comp- 
tons.  But  they  don't  count.  They're  a  queer  couple. 
They  hardly  live  here.  He's  a  drummer,  I  believe,  and 
she's  a  dressmaker,  and  lives  at  her  store.  Kind  of 
people  who  haven't  time  to  have  children.  Don't  de- 
serve 'em,  I  dare  say." 

"The  Comptons!"  laughed  Sallie.  "Ah,  yes,  the 
Comptons !" 

"Ah,  yes,  the  Comptons!"  mimicked  the  janitress, 
who  felt  that  she  had  been  stung  in  the  maternal  af- 
fections. The  blue-white  child  in  her  arms  set  up  a 
puny  howl;  the  baby  at  her  skirts  tugged  and  pulled. 
She  could  hear  the  others,  in  the  room  at  her  back,  im- 
proving the  shining  hour.  Yet  she  was  wasting  time 
on  a  woman  who  wanted  to  live  where  there  were  no 
children  .  .  .  the  hussy ! 

Sallie  had  heard  enough,  and  to  "ease"  things  gener- 
ally, gave  a  quarter  to  the  little  boy  at  the  janitress's 
skirts.  If  she  could  have  brought  herself  to  kiss  the 
pathetic  little  blue-white  face  on  the  mother's  breast  she 
would  have  done  it.  Still,  that  would  have  been  over- 
elaboration,  and  neither  mother  nor  child  would  have 
been  grateful.  The  Comptons !  That  was  it,  and  she 
wondered  why  she  had  picked  out  McNally. 

The  Comptons !  The  girl  with  the  silver-gold  hair, 
the  Puritan  face,  the  unsophisticated  manner,  and  the 
high-bred,  gentlewomanly  attributes  was  Mrs.  Comp- 
ton.  Sallie  ground  her  teeth  furiously.  She  could 
have  strangled  Miss  Hampton. 


D 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

HE  feminine  owls  were  deeply  impressed  and 
graphically  interested  when  the  news  of  Jack 
Childers'  engagement  reached  them.  Exactly 
how  it  "leaked  out,"  as  the  saying  is,  Mr. 
Childers  would  probably  never  know.  But  the  recep- 
tive owls  heard  of  it  in  exceedingly  due  course,  and 
proceeded  to  make  the  urbane  life  of  their  amiable 
managing  editor  distinctly  uncomfortable.  They  felt 
it  their  duty,  for  they  had  once  been  women,  and  they 
still  wore  skirts,  to  make  the  most  of  the  situation, 
which,  for  various  reasons,  was  singularly  grateful  to 
them.  Most  women  believe  that  man,  unmarried,  is 
a  rake  at  heart,  and  even  in  Owldom  a  vestige  of  that 
ancient  sentiment  may  yet  lurk. 

At  another  time,  the  humor  of  the  situation  might 
have  appealed  to  Mr.  Childers,  who  was  not  lacking  in 
that  sixth  perception,  known  as  the  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous. But  on  this  occasion  he  was  rubbed  into  irrita- 
bility, and  he  could  see  nothing  funny  in  the  proces- 
sion of  feminine  owls,  each  with  a  pretext,  that  came 
to  his  office  and  withered  him  with  congratulations. 

It  was  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  who  first 
appeared.  Her  avowed  object  was  to  consult  him  as  to 
some  editorial  "space"  that  she  needed  for  her  con- 
gested correspondence.  For  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  as  well 
as  Anastasia  Atwood,  received  many  daily  letters, 
which,  it  was  rumored,  they  wrote  to  themselves.  The 
enthusiastic  communicants,  who  glowed  with  a 
warmth  of  eulogy,  were  generally  presumed  by  the 
office  cynics  to  be  fictitious. 

Mr.   Childers   saw  through   Mrs.   Amelia  Amberg 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  173 

Hutchinson's  subterfuge,  for  it  was  transparent 
enough;  he  uneasily  scented  the  inevitable. 

"And  while  I  am  here,"  she  said,  "permit  me  to  tell 
you  how  glad  I  am.  Marriage  is  such  an  excellent 
thing,  Mr.  Childers"  (Amelia  had  owned  two  or  three 
husbands;  so  she  spoke  from  multi-colored  conjugal 
experience),  "and  you  will  find  that  with  a  well-regu- 
lated household  your  life  will  be  happier.  I  saw  her 
at  the  reception.  What  a  charming  gyurl !  A  picture 
of  old-time  innocence  and  lack  of  sophistication.  With 
her  influence,  Mr.  Childers,  we  shall  have  a  charming 
paper,  I  am  sure.  I  long  to  talk  with  her  of  my  de- 
partment, which  is  so  essentially  a  woman's.  Is  she 
interested  in  it?  Does  it  not  appeal  to  her  dear  little 
girl-heart?" 

Mr.  Childers  lost  his  veneer  of  affability  and 
wriggled  uncomfortably  in  his  chair.  He  longed  to 
say  "Rats !"  a  pungent  interjection  that  is  occasionally 
emitted  in  Owldom.  He  restrained  himself  and  mere- 
ly remarked  "Thank  you."  Then,  turning  to  the  type- 
writer, he  began — "And  now,  Miss  Poplets,  if  you 
are  ready,  we  will  continue." 

Miss  Poplets  glanced  at  him  in  mute  sympathy,  as 
Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  withdrew.  She  could 
read  him  like  a  book,  and  she  knew  how  these  owl- 
esses  grated  upon  his  nerves  and  how  he  would  have 
run  miles  to  escape  them  at  any  time.  This,  how- 
ever, was  merely  the  beginning  of  the  day's  store  of 
tribulation. 

The  next  visitor  was  Anastasia  Atwood,  wearing  a 
mystic  expression,  and  a  complexion  that  clamored  for 
an  application  of  cold  water.  She  had  just  completed 
a  poem — the  best  thing  she  had  ever  done — dealing  sa- 
tirically with  the  question  of  wine  at  the  White  House 
banquets.  She  "saw"  the  evil  example  accruing  from 


174  A  Girl  who  Wrote 

the  Presidential  endorsement  of  alcohol,  to  a  nation 
that  was  perpetually  squirming  around  its  excise 
laws.  It  was  a  thoughtful  little  thing,  of  exquisite  me- 
tre, etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

"You  sly  man!"  she  said  artlessly,  as  though  she 
were  playing  a  game  of  "peek-a-boo"  with  him.  "So 
you  are  going  to  be  married !  It  is  good  news  to  all  of 
us  in  the  office.  A  managing  editor  without  a  wife  is 
like  a  dinner  without  a  hostess.  Ah,  Mr.  Childers,  I 
love  my  sex,  for  I  believe  I  make  a  distinct  appeal  to 
it.  I  shall  forsake  you  utterly — I  really  shall — and  I 
shall  argue  out  all  my  propositions  with  your  wife. 
Oh,  I  shall,  I  assure  you.  You  will  have  to  be  on  your 
best  behavior — most  circumspect  and  discreet  .  .  ." 

"Miss  Poplets!"  cried  Mr.  Childers,  "what  about 
that  letter?  Not  finished  yet?  Excuse  me,  Mrs.  At- 
wood,  I  am  so  busy  to-day.  .  .  ." 

And  then,  as  the  door  closed  upon  the  pensive  poet- 
ess, with  her  mysticism  and  her  drab  face,  he  ex- 
claimed: "Great  Heaven!  What  have  I  done?  If 
any  more  of  those  cats  come  here  to-day  I  shall  tender 
my  resignation.  This  is  not  a  gossip  factory,  or  a  tea- 
fight.  Miss  Poplets,  why  do  you  allow  it?  Why  don't 
you  rescue  me  ?  Why  don't  you  tell  them  that  we  are 
dreadfully  busy,  and  have  no  time  to  cackle." 

Poor  little  Miss  Poplets  did  not  smile.  She  was 
desperately  vexed  at  these  interruptions,  for  she  knew 
how  offensive  they  were  to  her  master.  Many  a  time 
had  she  steered  him  away  from  the  outgrowing  senti- 
ments of  the  feminine  owls.  She  had  lied  for  him 
until  her  tongue  would  have  blistered,  if  falsehood 
could  have  achieved  that  condition.  She  had  rushed 
him  behind  doors  and  had  sworn  that  he  was  in  Bos- 
ton, in  Philadelphia,  in  Chicago.  Once  he  had  dodged 
behind  a  desk  and  she  had  dispatched  him  instantly 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  175 

to  San  Francisco!  She  would  have  sent  him  further 
to  please  him.  Vague  ideas,  in  case  of  continued  dis- 
turbance, flitted  through  her  mind.  Perhaps  she 
could  establish  him  comfortably  in  Honolulu.  .  .  . 

Rita  Eisenstein,  however,  took  her  by  surprise,  and 
Mr.  Childers  never  went  to  Honolulu.  He  was  caught, 
like  a  rat  in  a  trap,  in  his  own  chair,  and  he  frowned, 
and  cursed,  and  made  a  most  unsatisfactory  impression 
upon  the  feminine  owl. 

"Is  the  future  Mrs.  Childers  fond  of  society  chat- 
ter?" asked  Miss  Eisenstein  in  an  affectation  of  joy- 
ousness.  Her  Division  Street  confection  was  all  white 
and  unspotted  from  the  world.  ''I  do  hope  she  is!  It 
will  be  such  a  charming  thing  to  cater  to  the  wife  of 
one's  managing  editor,  won't  it?  I  can  do  a  good 
deal,  Mr.  Childers.  I  don't  say  it  to  boast  .  .  .  but  a 
word  from  me  goes.  If  at  any  time  your  wife  that  is 
to  be,  would  like  a  card  for  any  particular  entertain- 
ment, a  function  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  or  an  affair 
at  Sherry's,  I  can  do  it,  and  shall  be  only  too  delighted. 
I  am  assuming  that  Miss  Hampton  likes  society.  .  .  ." 

"Miss  Poplets!"  exclaimed  the  managing  editor — 
"Miss  Poplets!  .  .  ." 

"But  Miss  Eisenstein  was  not  so  easily  squelched. 
"One  moment,''  she  said.  "I  thought  I'd  just  tell  you 
that  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  for  the  wedding,  com- 
mand my  services.  There  are  one  or  two  people  with 
good  names,  and  excellent  addresses,  who  are  under  ob- 
ligations to  me.  If  you  think  they  can  help  you,  or  if 
their  presence  would  please  Miss  Hampton,  I  do  hope, 
Mr.  Childers,  that  you  will  let  me  know.  I  have  gone 
into  the  thing  so  thoroughly.  Sometimes  I  think  that 
I  devote  my  life  too  exclusively  to  this  work.  But  I 
love  it.  My  heart  and  soul  are  in  it.  I  am  never  quite . 
happy  unless — " 


176  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Little  Miss  Poplets  felt  that  unless  she  did  some- 
thing Mr.  Childers  would  either  throw  himself,  or  Miss 
Eisenstein,  from  the  window  into  the  courtyard.  The 
latter  alternative  would  not  have  disturbed  her  equa- 
namity  in  the  least.  Jack  Childers'  dislike  of  the  femi- 
nine owls  was  contagious,  and  little  Miss  Poplets  had 
caught  it  in  a  malignant  form. 

"If  you  will  finish  this  letter,  Mr.  Childers,"  she 
said — "Excuse  me,  Miss  Eisenstein,  but  we  have  so 
much  to  do. — Let  me  see.  You  had  just  dictated : 
'The  article  on  Sunday  entertainment,  from  a  pen  as 
widely  popular  as  yours — '  I've  got  that.  .  .  ." 

"Bless  you,  Miss  Poplets;  bless  you,"  he  exclaimed 
fervently  as  the  door  closed  upon  Miss  Eisenstein. 

Happy  Hippy  wore  a  somewhat  sorrowful  mien 
when  she  came  into  Mr.  Childers'  sanctum.  Her  pro- 
fessed object  was  to  confer  with  him  about  that  per- 
petually unwritten  story  of  hers.  Nobody  had  ever 
seen  a  contribution  from  her  pen  in  cold  print.  In 
fact,  it  was  hinted  around  the  office  that  she  was  liter- 
ally unable  to  write,  and  that  her  spelling  was  not  only 
sinful  but  disgusting.  Still,  she  held  her  position, 
which  was  mainly  decorative,  and  she  was  very  pleas- 
ant to  the  olfactory  sense. 

It  pained  her  to  hear  of  Jack  Childers'  engagement. 
Although  she  had  never  nourished  any  hope  for  her- 
self in  that  direction,  she  was  nevertheless  grieved,  as  a 
matter  of  principle,  to  see  that  an  able-bodied  man  was 
successfully  disposed  of — placed  beyond  reach,  so  to 
speak.  A  man  unmarried  was,  at  any  rate,  a  man. 
Married,  he  merely  wore  the  outward  semblance  of 
masculinity,  and  was  as  good  as  done  for.  She  felt 
that  her  position  was  slightly  jeopardized  and  that  in  a 
"married"  office  her  occupation  would  be  singularly 
insipid. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  177 

"And  so  they  were  married!"  she  said  skittishly  as 
she  sat  down  beside  him,  exhaling  a  fervid  odor  of 
stewed  violets.  "We  are  all  very  delighted  to  hear  of 
the  happy  event,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  continued,  rather 
wistfully,  "and  to  know  that  your  life  will  be  so  pleas- 
ant. I  am  a  great  upholder  of  marriage,  for  I  main- 
tain that  it  is  a  commendable  institution.  Others  do 
not  agree  with  me.  Even  in  this  office  there  are 
women  who  affect  to  sneer  at  it.  I  am  not  one  of 
them.  Of  course,  a  clever  woman  can  do  much  for 
herself,  but  I  hold  that  marriage  is  the  most  fitting 
goal.  Woman  was  meant  to  marry,  don't  you  think 
so?" 

Poor  Jack  Childers  looked  out  of  the  window,  and 
up  at  the  ceiling,  and  down  at  the  carpet.  The  strong, 
sickening  odor  of  the  stewed  violets  nauseated  him, 
and  he  felt  that  he  was  indeed  bearded  in  his  own  den. 
If  only  these  owl-esses  were  married  and  had  a  set  of 
triplets  apiece!  Little  Miss  Poplets  paled,  and  saw 
tragedy  in  the  atmosphere.  She  wondered  if  Mr. 
Childers  could  possibly  survive,  and  she  grew  restless 
and  feverish. 

"You  do  not  answer,"  she  continued,  purring. 
"Oh,  selfish  man!  You  like  to  see  us  around  you. 
You  think  that  if  we  were  married,  the  office  would 
be  very  dull  and  uninteresting.  Perhaps  it  would — 
perhaps  it  would !  But  love  is  selfish,  Mr.  Childers. 
It  is  a  law  unto  itself,  and  the  time  may  come  when 
your  little  birds  will  open  the  door  of  their  cages,  and 
fly.  You  cannot  imprison  us  forever;  you  dare  not. 
We  are  women.  Even  Amelia,  I  think,  is  open  to 
inducement,  and  she  is  no  novice.  It  is  the  way  of 
the  world." 

"I  will  not  take  up  any  more  of  your  valuable  time, 
madame,"  he  said  severely.  ''It  is  very  good  of  you 


178  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

all,  and  if  you  ever  get  a  chance — to  open  your  cage — 
don't  mind  me.  Take  .it — and  fly." 

He  could  not  resist  that  little  rub.  It  was  possibly 
the  first  really  ill-natured  remark  he  had  made  to  his 
myrmidons  .  .  .  but  they  riled  him  .  .  .  how  they 
riled  him!  Perhaps  Happy  Hippy,  pachydermatously 
inclined  as  she  was,  saw  that  his  temper  was  not  in  its 
most  golden  frame.  But  she  did  not  resent  the  acidity 
in  his  last  remark.  She  could  not  afford  to  resent  any- 
thing, for  she  knew  that  she  was  a  luxury  rather  than 
a  necessity,  and  there  had  been  times  when  she  was 
convinced  that  Mr.  Childers  looked  upon  her  as  a 
doubtful  luxury.  She  wobbled  out,  her  hips  rhyth- 
mically a-swing,  and  eddies  of  perfume  swirling  into 
the  four  corners  of  the  room. 

Mr.  Childers  felt  completely  unsettled,  and  he  sat 
frowning,  and  making  no  attempt  to  struggle  with  a 
mass  of  editorial  correspondence  that  lay  threaten- 
ingly before  him.  He  was  on  edge.  He  had  hitherto 
successfully  battled  against  these  women,  and  rigor- 
ously denied  himself  to  them  on  all  occasions.  And 
now  they  besieged  him,  and  he  was  powerless.  He 
could  have  coped  with  a  delegation  of  irate  Trade 
Unionists  far  more  effectively  than  with  these  feminine 
parodies.  His  hatred  of  them  was  quite  unreasonable, 
and  he  knew  it;  but  on  that  precise  account  it  was 
all  the  more  irresistible,  for  when  cold  applications  of 
logic  become  useless,  then  a  case  is  generally  hopeless. 

Happy  Hippy  went  back  to  her  sister-owls  slightly 
disconcerted,  and  opined  in  a  loud  voice  that  Mr.  Child- 
ers seemed  to  be  neither  blushing  nor  happy.  She 
had  her  own  opinions,  she  said,  but  preferred  to  keep 
them  to  herself.  In  spite  of  which,  Lamp-Post  Lucy 
felt  that  her  duty  lay  before  her,  and  marched  off  in 
her  seven-leagued  Wellington  boots  to  give  a  little 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  179 

twist,  on  her  own  account,  to  Mr.  Childers'  dolorous 
situation. 

This  time  he  was  on  his  way  to  Honolulu,  and  had 
just  informed  Miss  Poplets  that  the  further  appearance 
of  any  petticoat  in  his  office  would  be  attended  with 
the  direst  results,  when  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  following  a 
district  messenger  boy,  entered.  The  Fates  were 
against  him,  and  he  resigned  himself  hopelessly  to  the 
inevitable. 

"Never  mind,"  he  said  to  little  Poplets,  as  he  noticed 
that  she  seemed  about  to  burst  into  tears.  "It  can't 
last  much  longer,  and  I  won't  go  to  Honolulu  to-day." 

Lamp-Post  Lucy  sat  down  and  crossed  her  huge 
limbs.  As  mistress  of  the  department  associated  with 
love-letters,  and  advice  to  Lubin  and  Dulcinea,  she  be- 
lieved that  Mr.  Childers  would  be  glad  to  see  her. 
Perhaps  he  would  want  to  know  things,  for  to  a  busy 
man,  a  young  "girl's  heart  was  often  a  golden  mystery. 
She  could  advise  him,  for  she  lived  in  the  atmos- 
phere .  .  . 

"You  won't  mind»me,"  she  said,  flapping  one  of  her 
Wellingtons  to  and  fro,  "  for  you  know  how  I  look 
upon  these  affairs.  I  do  congratulate  you  so  heartily, 
Mr.  Childers.  And  I  would  do  anything  to  help  you. 
Of  course,  I  have  to  deal  with  a  lot  of  very  foolish 
people  in  my  correspondence — girls  who  talk  of 
'steady  company,'  and  of  'going  with'  their  'young 
gents;'  men  who  write  of  'lady  friends'  at  East  Side 
entertainments — but  I  understand.  Sometimes,  Mr. 
Childers,  I  wish  that  Fifth  Avenue  would  consult  me, 
because  I  really  know,  and  I  feel  that  I  could  avert 
many  misunderstandings  and  tragedies.  Do  tell  me 
about  Miss  Hampton.  Of  course,  I  have  no  right  to 
ask,  as  our  relations  are  only  business  relations.  But 
my  heart  throbs  at  these  times.  I  cannot  forget  that 


i8o  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

I  am  a  girl,  and  I  do  enjoy  these  matters  so  thor- 
oughly." 

She  flapped  the  other  Wellington  boot,  and  looked 
so  appallingly  amiable  that  Jack  Childers,  in  spite  of 
himself,  smiled.  And  he  knew  that  the  smile  had 
saved  him,  as  tears  carried  balm  to  the  heart  of  the 
agonized  Tennysonian  lady  in  the  case  of  "Home  they 
brought  her  warrior  dead."  The  atmosphere  looked 
less  sombre.  That  tiny  ray,  flashed  upon  him  by  the 
ever-healing  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  gave  Tiim  courage. 

"There  is  nothing  to  tell,"  he  said ;  and  a  deep  feel- 
ing of  gratitude  surged  in  the  breast  of  little  Poplets 
as  she  realized  that,  at  last,  thanks  to  Lamp-Post 
Lucy's  flapping  Wellingtons,  he  was  safe.  "We  have 
known  each  other  for  years.  It  is  all  very  pleasant 
and  comfortable." 

"Ah !"  she  exclaimed  complacently,  for  she  felt  that 
she  could  really  venture  something  rather  pretty  and 
decidedly  apropos.  "That  is  charming ;  but  if  you  will 
permit  me,  Mr.  Childers,  I'll  show  you  a  letter  that  I 
have  just  received  and  have  already  answered.  It  will 
not  apply  to  you,  but  it  will  interest  you.  May  I  ?" 

He  nodded  dejectedly.  It  could  not  last  much 
longer,  and  he  might  as  well  make  up  his  mind  to  bear 
it  stoically.  Moreover,  those  Wellingtons  were  so 
gorgeous.  .  .  . 

Lamp-Post  Lucy  took  a  crumpled  letter  from  her 
pocket,  smoothed  it  out,  and  read :  "  'Madame,  won't 
you  please  advise  me?  I'm  a  broken-hearted  young 
man,  earning  a  good  living,  and  rather  nice-looking. 
At  least  they  tell  me  so.'  (Isn't  that  sweet,  that  little 
burst  of  modesty?  she  asked  gushingly).  'I  am  en- 
gaged to  my  cousin,  who  grew  up  with  me.  We  like 
each  other,  but  she  takes  everything  for  granted.  She 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  181 

knows  me  so  well,  she  says.  The  other  night  she  went 
to  Walhalla  Hall  with  a  young  fellow  who  lives  on 
the  same  block,  and  she  told  me  she  did  it  because  she 
wanted  a  new  experience.  She  was  anxious  to  know 
if  a  real  strange  young  fellow  would  appeal  to  her,  as 
of  course  I — was  her  cousin.  She  acts  very  oddly. 
What  shall  I  do?'  Do  you  know  what  I  answered, 
Mr.  Childers?" 

He  neither  knew  nor  cared,  but  she  went  on :  "I  just 
told  him,"  she  said,  "  that  this  wasn't  love ;  that  it  was 
just  cousinly  affection,  not  at  all  serviceable  for  matri- 
monial purposes.  I  informed  him  that  any  engaged 
girl,  who  would  go  to  Walhalla  Hall  with  a  stranger, 
wasn't  worth  considering  for  a  moment." 

"I  suppose  you  said  'Chuck  her !'  "  remarked  Mr. 
Childers,  with  a  smile. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  cried.  "  Never  slang — any- 
thing but  that.  I  abominate  it.  I  thought  I'd  read 
you  this  letter,  because  it  is  really  instructive.  Don't 
you  think  so  ?" 

The  ordeal  ended  soon  after  this.  Eva  Higgins  and 
Mamie  Munson  appeared  later ;  but  little  Poplets,  who 
had  resented  the  reading  of  Lamp-Post  Lucy's  letter 
as  an  unwarranted  piece  of  gratuitous  impertinence, 
absolutely  refused  them  admittance.  She  did  not  even 
trouble  to  send  Mr.  Childers  to  Honolulu,  but  openly 
admitted  that  he  was  there,  and  frankly  confessed  that, 
at  her  own  risk,  she  declined  to  receive  them.  The 
feminine  owls  were  exceedingly  wroth,  and  their 
voices,  pitched  high,  squeaked  ominously  through  the 
corridors.  But  little  Poplets  won  the  day,  and  re- 
turned, rosy  and  on  the  verge  of  tears,  to  her  desk. 
And  Jack  Childers  thanked  her  fervently,  and  told  her 
that  she  was  a  treasure,  a  jewel,  so  that  she  felt  amply 


1 82  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

repaid  for  her  arduous  labor  in  the  cause  of  her  mas- 
ter's mental  repose. 

It  was  late  that  evening  when  Sallie  Sydenham  ap- 
peared. She  had  shirked  her  theatre,  and  had  devoted 
her  time  to  mapping  out  a  plan  of  action.  What  it 
was  she  hardly  knew  as  yet ;  but  she  had  been  thinking 
things  out,  and  was  prepared  to  work  unwaveringly. 
Her  night  had  been  sleepless.  And  her  cup  of  unhappi- 
ness  had  been  filled  to  overflowing  by  the  recollection  of 
Charlie  Covington's  last  words.  She  had  hoped  that  if 
the  case  became  desperate  she  could  have  called  upon 
him  in  the  splendid  devotion  of  his  platonic  friendship. 
That  was  all  over.  Charlie  could  never  be  the  same 
again,  under  any  circumstances.  The  memory  of  what 
he  had  said  made  her  feel  petulant  and  irritable,  for  it 
was  so  manifestly  absurd.  She  had  regarded  him 
safely,  almost  as  a  woman-friend,  and  he  had  turned. 
He  was  a  man  .  .  .  the  man  she  didn't  want.  Every- 
thing seemed  to  be  against  her. 

She  had  come  to  the  office  to  hear  Jack  Childers  talk, 
to  learn  from  his  own  lips  that  he  loved  this  girl,  who 
was  known  under  an  alias  in  the  squalor  and  dankness 
of  an  East  Side  apartment  house  .  .  .  this  pale  girl, 
with  the  silver-gold  hair,  who  had  one  relationship 
with  him  as  cousin,  and  proposed  to  undertake  an- 
other. .  .  . 

It  was  late  in  the  evening,  but  too  early  for  the  up- 
town ride  after  the  day's  labor.  She  had  not  the  heart 
to  consider  that  uptown  ride.  Bohemian  though  she 
was  in  all  her  impulses,  her  Bohemianism  balked  at  this 
guileless  contact  with  Ivy  Hampton's  cousin  and  fiance. 
She  felt,  moreover,  like  an  executioner  as  she  came  into 
the  office,  and  saw  him  sitting  there,  in  his  easy  non- 
chalance and  good  temper.  Whatever  happened,  she 
would  have  to  deal  him  a  crushing  blow,  for  half  meas- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  183 

ures  were  impossible,  and  she  would  feel  bound  to 
prevent  his  marriage  with  Ivy,  whether  he  loved  her 
or  whether  he  didn't,  whether  the  scandal  burst,  or 
whether  it  evaporated.  She  would  take  very  good 
care  that  it  evaporated,  and  then.  .  .  .  She  did  not 
dare  to  think  of  her  future  course.  She  had  never 
dwelt  very  fixedly  upon  marital  problems.  But  she 
knew  one  thing,  and  it  was  that  she  could  never  permit 
the  man  she  loved  .  .  .  yes,  she  loved  him  with  all  her 
heart, 'and  had  always  loved  him  ...  to  enter  into  a 
life  contract,  his  eyes  closed,  with  a  girl  whom  she  had 
proved  to  be  hopelessly  tainted.  She  could  not  think 
it  out.  The  immediate  question  was  how  to  avert  a 
horrible  newspaper  scandal. 

"I've  had  such  a  terrible  day  of  it,  Sallie,"  he  said, 
smiling,  as  she  came  up  to  his  desk.  "They  have  all 
been  congratulating  me.  Miss  Poplets  will  tell  you  all 
about  it,  if  you  want  to  know.  But  perhaps" — rue- 
fully— "you've  also  come  to  congratulate  me." 

"No,"  she  said  shortly.  "You  didn't  think  it  worth 
while  to  tell  me  the  news,  Mr.  Covington  was  my 
informant.  It  is  true,  of  course." 

He  put  up  his  hands  with  a  comic  gesture,  as  though 
to  ward  off  a  blow.  "Yes,"  he  said.  "It  is  quite  true, 
but  don't  congratulate  me.  I  hate  it.  Honestly,  if 
somebody  came  in  and  pitied  me,  and  cried  over  me,  it 
would  be  a  most  welcome  event — such  a  change." 

She  smiled,  but  not  very  exuberantly.  He  did  not 
seem  to  be  violently  delighted,  but  of  course  he  had 
known  it  for  so  long.  It  was  new  to  her,  but  not  to 
him.  He  had  grown  quite  used  to  contemplating  the 
situation. 

"I  won't  congratulate  you,"  she  said,  with  an  affec- 
tation of  indulgence,  "as  you  don't  wish  it.  It  is  not 
always  necessary  to  speak  congratulations,  is  it? 


1 84  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

When — when — shall  you  be — be — when  shall  you  be 
married  ?" 

"Not  for  a  long  time,"  he  cried.  "Not  for  ages. 
Miss  Hampton  is  in  no  hurry.  She  is  a  very  sensible 
girl,  quite  practical  and  logical.  .  .  ." 

"Oh!"  Sallie  could  not  repress  the  exclamation. 
This  information  gave  her  a  vast  feeling  of  relief.  She 
could  breathe  again.  He  was  not  a  fervid  Lothario, 
at  any  rate.  He  was  quite  cool  and  unruffled,  it 
seemed  to  her.  A  certain  mental  tension  was  removed ; 
clouds  that  had  almost  touched  her,  floated  upwards 
into  the  haze ;  she  began  to  feel  more  like  her  usual  self. 

"You  are  not  impassioned,"  she  said  in  her  frivolous 
tones,  "not  a  bit  like  the  heroes  in  my  plays.  I  thought 
I  should  find  you  kissing  locks  of  hair  and  pressing 
violets." 

"Oh,  Sallie,  Sallie,"  he  exclaimed  deprecatingly. 
"You  are  like  all  girls,  after  all — except  Miss  Hamp- 
ton. Marriage  is,  after  all,  the  supreme  event  in  the 
world,  in  your  opinion,  eh  ?  I  am  not,  as  you  say,  im- 
passioned. Why  should  I  be?  There  are  no  risks,  no 
dangers.  We  are  fond  of  each  other,  and  it  is  a  case 
of  the  course  of  true  love  running  quite  smoothly." 

"And  if  there  were  dangers  and  risks  ?"  she  asked. 

"I  think  I  should  like  them,"  he  answered,  with  a 
laugh.  "They  would  be  so  exciting.  As  it  is,  nothing 
is  likely  to  happen.  It  is  all  so  placid  and  certain." 

She  looked  at  him,  anxious  and  distressed.  Per- 
haps he  didn't  know  how  much  he  loved  Ivy  Hampton, 
and  the  only  thing  necessary  was  the  spice  of  danger, 
the  leaven  of  risk.  In  that  case,  it  would  be  very  sad 
indeed,  and  the  denouement  would  prove  ghastly. 

"Suppose,"  she  said,  with  an  assumption  of  light- 
ness, "that  at  the  very  last  moment  Miss  Hampton  told 
you  that  she  'could  never  be  yours,'  and  said  'Stand 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  185 

aside,'  and  'Let  me  pass,'  as  they  do  in  melodrama. 
What  then?" 

He  grew  rather  thoughtful.  Her  question  was  a 
somewhat  leading  one,  but  .  .  .  well,  she  was  Sallie 
Sydenham,  and  Sallie  had  the  privileges  of  a  court- 
jester.  He  had  once  said  that  she  wore  a  cap  and  bells 
for  the  benefit  of  the  office. 

"What  then?"  he  repeated.  "Well,  Sallie,  I'm 
afraid  I'm  prosaic.  I'm  awfully  sorry,  but  I  don't 
think  that  it  would  kill  me.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you 
that  I  should  pine  away,  in  a  beautiful  green  and  yellow 
melancholy.  Alas !  I  fear  I  shouldn't.  The  twentieth 
century  doesn't  lend  itself  to  that  sort  of  thing,  does  it? 
Of  course,  I  should  be  horribly  put  out,  and  I  think  I 
should  make  it  very  warm  for  Miss  Hampton." 

Sallie  blessed  those  words,  as  he  spoke  them.  They 
set  her  at  comparative  ease,  and  seemed  to  soothe  her. 
No,  it  was  not  a  selfish  satisfaction  in  the  belief  that 
he  was  not  violently  enamored,  that  she  experienced. 
There  was  absolutely  no  selfishness  in  any  nook  or 
cranny  of  the  situation.  If  he  had  loved  Ivy  passion- 
ately, and  the  position  had  been  clear  and  desirable,  she 
would  have  been  light-hearted  and  joyous — or  she 
thought  she  would — for  his  sake.  She  loved  him,  and 
there  was  no  taint  in  her  love.  She  would  always  love 
him;  but  she  could  have  watched  his  happy  marriage 
to  the  one  sublime  woman  of  his  choice,  with  exquisite 
altruism.  This  she  firmly  believed.  She  would  have 
envied  that  sublime  woman.  .  .  .  That  was  all. 

"Don't  you  sometimes  tire  of  the  dreadful  rubbish  I 
talk?"  she  asked,  with  a  laugh,  for  she  felt  that  she 
could  enjoy  repose — for  a  moment  or  two,  at  any 
rate. 

"Not  a  bit,"  he  responded  promptly.  "You're  a 
tonic,  Sallie.  I've  often  told-  you  so.  I  might  object 


1 86  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

to  the  analytic  suggestion  in  your  recent  question,  if  I 
thought  you  were  serious.  But  you  never  are,  you  lit- 
tle lady-wag." 

"I  never  am,"  she  declared,  with  an  inaudible  sigh, 
"and  I  hope  I  shall  always  be  able  to  live  up  to  my 
reputation — or  down  to  it,  or  around  it,  or  in  some  car- 
dinal association  with  it." 

"By  the  bye,"  he  asked,  "how's  the  case  getting  on — 
poor  old  Stuyvesant  and  his  siren  ?" 

It  was  too  ghastly,  and  for  one  instant — one  quick, 
horrid  instant — she  thought  of  telling  him  the  whole 
hateful  truth,  and  closing  the  situation  with  a  snap 
there  and  then.  It  was  such  a  fearful  impulse  that  it 
made  her  feel  unsafe  and  irresponsible. 

She  summoned  up  all  her  powers  of  repression,  and 
conquered.  "Nicely,"  she  said  carelessly.  "I'm  hard 
at  work." 

"Have  you  any  inkling,  inkling,  inkling?"  he  asked, 
and  he  stopped  to  whistle  the  song  from  "Florodora." 

"Perhaps;  but  don't  be  inquisitive.  Sherlock 
Holmes  never  gave  himself  away,  and  I'm  Sherlock 
just  at  present.  I'm  off  now,  as  I've  loads  of  things 
to  do.  Good-night." 

"Won't  you  wait  and  ride  uptown?" 

"I  can't,  to-night." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  with  a  quizzical  smile.  "You  are  go- 
ing to  look  upon  me  as  engaged  now,  and  to  leave  me 
alone.  Sallie,  if  you  do  that  I  shall  be  furious.  The 
way  in  which  men  who  are  engaged,  or  married,  are 
abandoned  by  everything  feminine  that  they  like,  is  dis- 
tressing and  cruel.  It  always  reminds  me  of  rats  leav- 
ing a  sinking  ship.  Don't  be  a  rat,  Sallie,  and  please 
don't  regard  me  as  a  sinking  ship.  Go  on  being  a  good 
fellow,  Sallie.  You  are  a  good  fellow,  and  you  can't 
help  it." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  187 

A  flush  spread  over  her  face,  and  she  felt  rather 
shaky.  This  appeal  to  her  .  .  .  well,  it  was  unneces- 
sary ;  it  was  heartless. 

"I  shall  never  be  a  rat,"  she  said  unsteadily,  "and 
you  will  never  be  a  sinking  ship.  But  I  must  abandon 
you  to-night,  whatever  you  are.  Duty,  Mr.  Childers, 
calls  me,  and  I  reply,  'I  come — I  come.'  " 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

ALLIE  possessed  very  few  of  those  quiet, 
serene,  reasoning  faculties  that  mow  down  the 
crop  of  mushroom  impulses  as  they  sprout. 
Nor  could  she  follow  the  inevitable  progress 
of  events  from  their  source,  to  the  turbulent  everyday 
sea  into  which  they  finally  empty  themselves.  With 
her  it  was  always  intuition.  She  decided  that  the  next 
thing  to  do  was  to  see  Arthur  Stuyvesant's  wife,  for 
upon  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  the  burden  of  results  rested.  If 
the  wife  had  no  intention  of  seeking  redress,  if  she  be- 
lieved in  a  plaintive  acquiescence,  a  Spartan  endurance 
.  .  .  then  there  was  considerably  less  to  fear.  The  case 
would  be  easier  to  handle,  for  her  duty  would  be  nar- 
rowed down  to  some  unimagined  "business"  with  Jack 
Childers.  If  she  could  but  discover  that  Stuyvesant's 
wife  suffered  inertly,  unvindictively,  then  she  could 
take  her  own  time  .  .  .  there  would  be  no  need  to 
hurry.  .  .  .  She  could  placidly  await  her  cue,  and 
pave  the  way  for  a  denouement  that  should  not  prove 
disastrous. 

Unconsciously,  her  mind  grew  less  perturbed  .  .  . 
the  danger  signal  was  somewhat  blurred  .  .  .  she  was, 
in  spite  of  herself,  lulled  by  the  fact  that  nothing  hap- 
pened. To  Mr.  Green  she  had  made  one  report,  with 
a  great  affectation  of  sensational  mystery  .  .  .  the  sort 
of  mystery  that  appealed  to  his  not  aggressively  fan- 
tastic mind.  She  told  him  that  she  had  made  some 
discoveries,  and  that  in  a  few  days  she  would  know  for 
certain  if  there  really  were  a  "story,"  or  if  the  whole 
thing  could  be  dismissed  as  mere  gossip.  This,  she 
imagined — poor  little  Sallie,  pitted  against  the  huge, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  189 

relentless,  multi-cogged  wheel  of  Newspaperdom — 
was  a  very  diplomatic  move  on  her  part.  She  knew 
little  of  the  wheels  within  wheels  of  journalism,  and 
she  was  rather  proud  of  a  course  that  she  thought 
would  pave  the  way  for  that  final  moment,  when  she 
saw  herself  approach  Mr.  Green,  with  the  words  "Noth- 
ing in  it  ...  absolutely  untrue  .  .  .  case  dismissed." 
And  she  would  say  this,  she  told  herself,  with  a  fine  sim- 
ulation of  annoyance,  as  though  she  were  deeply  cha- 
grined at  finding  that  her  labors  had  led  her  to  a  dead 
wall.  In  fact,  she  would  give  an  artistic  imitation  of 
the  disappointed  and  hungry  reporter.  She  had  watched 
many  reporters  robbed  of  their  prey.  She  had  seen 
their  despondent  faces  when  "stories"  upon  which  they 
had  expended  their  most  highly  sharpened  energies 
had  resulted  in  ...  in  a  clean  bill  of  nothing  whatso- 
ever. She  had  often  wondered  to  herself  if,  in  their 
heart  of  hearts,  they  had  not  felt  some  instinctive  sense 
of  relief,  at  the  knowledge  that  they  had  speared  inno- 
cence instead  of  guilt,  and  had  found  the  world  fair, 
when  they  had  gone  forth  to  paint  it  dark.  But  they 
had  always  seemed  to  be  grievously  depressed. 

She  looked  upon  her  quest  of  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  as 
distressing,  but  necessary.  But  when,  with  the  ad- 
dress of  the  presumably  aggrieved  wife  on  a  scrap  of 
paper  in  her  pocket,  she  set  out  upon  her  self-imposed 
mission,  her  heart  sank  and  her  spirit  quailed.  It  was 
a  nauseating  piece  of  work ;  but  it  was  the  sort  of  work 
at  which  nine  out  of  ten  reporters  would  smile  as 
"easy,"  and  they  had  far  slighter  inducements  than 
she  possessed.  They  did  this  sort  of  thing  for  a  dollar 
or  two — for  fifty  cents  an  hour,  or  eight  dollars  a 
column.  Her  work  meant  .  .  .  oh,  it  meant  every- 
thing. In  it  were  involved  Jack  Childers,  Ivy  Hamp- 
ton, Arthur  Stuyvesant  .  .  .  herself. 


190  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

She  slipped  through  a  quiet  thoroughfare  in  the 
West  Side  Nineties  and  found  the  house  of  the  one 
woman  who  was  legitimately  entitled  to  the  corporeal 
beauties  of  Mr.  Stuyvesant.  She  saw  his  name  in 
large  red  letters  upon  several  bill-posters.  He  was  to 
appear  in  a  new  problem  play,  and  the  event  had  been 
largely  advertised.  Of  the  real  problem  that  she  her- 
self must  solve,  the  advertisements  were  silent.  If 
only  she  could  gag  the  situation.  .  .  . 

She  rang  an  electric  bell,  and  walked  up  three  flights 
of  stairs.  There  was  an  elevator^  but  she  had  no  de- 
sire to  be  rushed  up.  She  would  arrive  soon  enough ; 
she  would  have  been  quite  satisfied  to  walk  up  ten 
flights  of  stairs.  As  she  reached  Mrs.  Stuyvesant's 
apartment,  the  door  was  opened,  and  a  man  issued 
forth.  She  saw  him  stand  by  the  elevator  shaft,  ring 
the  bell,  and  wait  until  the  boy  answered  his  summons. 
He  was  a  well-dressed  yet  unobtrusive  man,  but  she 
could  see  the  dim  outlines  of  his  face  only.  He  did  not 
look  at  her,  and  she  shrank  back,  in  case  he  should  at- 
tempt to  do  so.  She  waited  until  he  had  disappeared, 
and  then  rang  Mrs.  Stuyvesant's  bell. 

It  was  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  herself  who  opened  the  door, 
Sallie  felt  sure.  She  held  a  lighted  lamp  in  her  hand, 
and  started  as  she  saw  Miss  Sydenham. 

"Oh!"  she  said,  "excuse  me.  I  had  just  closed  the 
door  to  a  gentleman.  ...  I  thought  he  had  returned. 
How  stupid  of  me!  Well" — with  a  smile — "I  can't 
say  I'm  out  now,  can  I  ?  Did  you  wish  to  see  me?" 

"Please." 

She  led  the  way  into  a  little  drawing-room,  and 
Sallie  followed.  It  was  a  tiny,  closely  furnished  apart- 
ment, with  pictures  of  Arthur  Stuyvesant  everywhere 
— on  easels,  on  desks,  on  what-nots,  on  the  mantel- 
piece, on  the  bookcase.  The  actor,  in  all  styles,  met  her 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  191 

eye  in  poses  of  declamatory  aspect  and  Roman  toga, 
and  in  photographs  of  the  smug,  smiling  drawing-room 
demeanor  of  to-day.  It  was  a  sort  of  indigestion  of 
Arthur  Stuyvesant.  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  was  a  faded  lit- 
tle woman  who  must  once  have  been  exceedingly 
pretty.  Sallie  could  picture  her  with  rosy  cheeks  and 
a  well-rounded  figure.  Suggestions  of  this  remained, 
but  the  cheeks  were  hollowing,  and  the  figure,  in  a 
tawdry  silken  peignoir,  with  ribbons  awry  and  laces 
gone  wrong,  looked  limp  and  uncared  for.  In  spite  of 
the  lightness  of  her  first  words,  Sallie  could  see  that 
she  was  uneasy  and  feverish.  She  placed  the  lamp 
upon  a  small  table.  It  was  the  only  light  in  the  room, 
but  it  was  luminous  enough  to  give  salience  to  the  de- 
testable smiling  pictures  of  Arthur  Stuyvesant. 

"You  wish  to  see  me?"  asked  Mrs.  Stuyvesant. 
"You  are  an  actress,  of  course  ?" 

She  glanced  significantly  at  the  rouge  on  Miss  Syd- 
enham's  cheeks — tints  that  she  put  on  as  regularly  as 
she  donned  her  clothes.  She  often  said — to  Rosina — 
that  she  felt  cold  without  it.  ... 

"No,"  Sallie  replied,  "I  will  introduce  myself.  You 
may  have  heard  of  me.  I  am  Sallie  Sydenham,  the 
dramatic  critic." 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  stared  at  her  visitor  in  surprise. 
There  was  a  time  when  she  would  have  arisen,  in  all 
her  might  and  main,  to  flout  this  daring  young  critic 
who  had  made  merry  so  frequently  at  the  expense  of 
her  aspiring  husband  .  .  .  who  had  penned  caustic 
witticisms  and  assailed  the  immorality  of  plays,  with  a 
pen  that  was  abnormally  trenchant  and  vindictive. 
That  time  had  passed.  Still,  through  force  of  habit, 
she  looked  for  a  moment  at  the  various  pictures  of  the 
actor  that  filled  the  room. 

"Yes,  I  know  you,"  she  said.     "We  have  often  hated 


192  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

you  together  .  .  .  when  you  attacked  him;  and 
laughed  at  and  applauded  you  .  .  .  when  you  attacked 
others.  You  have  always  appeared  to  be  honest,  but 
honesty  is  unpleasant.  Once  I  thought  that  if  I  ever 
met  you,  I  should  take  great  pleasure  in  strangling  you. 
It  was  when  you  said  that  he  appealed  only  to  the  un- 
ripe judgment  and  the  forbidden  sentiments  of  the 
matinee  girl.  I  treasured  that  up  against  you.  But 
now,  Miss  Sydenham,  I  do  not  mind.  We  ...  we 
change." 

"Yes,"  said  Sallie  in  a  low  voice,  "I  know,  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant,  I  know.  My  visit  to-night  has  nothing 
whatsoever  to  do  with  dramatic  criticism." 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  looked  once  more  at  her  collection 
of  photographs,  and  Sallie  wondered  at  her  own  temer- 
ity. It  was  ghastly  to  apply  the  probe,  as  she  knew 
that  she  must  do,  if  her  mission  were  to  be  successfully 
accomplished. 

"I  came,"  said  Sallie  slowly — it  seemed  cruel  to  look 
at  the  poor  little  faded  woman,  and  yet  she  preferred 
to  do  it  rather  than  stare  at  the  gallery  of  dramatic 
Stuyvesants — "I  came,  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  to  tell  you 
that  the  paper  has  heard — has  heard  this  sad  story — 
and  to  ask  you — to  ask  you — " 

She  stumbled,  and  was  silent,  literally  unable  to  pro- 
ceed. She  wondered  if  the  "out-and-out"  reporter 
began  in  this  way  ...  or  if  he  beat  about  the  bush 
more  artistically  ...  or  if  he  were  even  more  brutal 
in  his  frankness.  What  an  agreeable  calling!  And 
yet  men  could  be  reporters,  while  there  were  bricks  to 
be  "laid,"  subways  to  be  dug,  tunnels  to  be  excavated. 

"It  is  quite  true — whatever  you  may  have  heard," 
said  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  quietly.  "Yes,  I  know.  You 
are  referring  to  the — trouble  between  Mr.  Stuyvesant 
and  myself.  You  need  not  hesitate.  It  is  a  subject 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  193 

that  I  have  schooled  myself  to  meet.  I  am  quite  will- 
ing to  talk." 

Sallie  experienced  a  sense  of  dismay  so  keen  that 
she  felt  the  sharpening  of  her  features,  the  tightening 
of  the  skin  upon  her  face.  Old  Witherby's  insinua- 
tions were  even  more  far-reaching  than  he  had  sup- 
posed. Mrs.  Stuyvesant  knew  all,  had  made  her  plans, 
and  was  prepared.  For  a  moment  Sallie  was  utterly 
taken  aback.  She  had  intended  to  probe  and  to  ferret. 
Instead,  the  actor's  wife  threw  the  truth  at  her,  and  it 
was  a  large  and  a  formidable  truth. 

"Is  it  true,"  she  began  hesitantly — "is  it  true  that 
you  will  take  steps  to — to  secure  a  divorce — to  venti- 
late the  matter?" 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  showed  no  emotion.  This  was  not 
the  picture  of  the  distressed  and  weeping  wife  that 
Sallie  had  expected  to  see.  Cool  resolution  was  im- 
pressed upon  the  bedraggled  features  of  the  pale  little 
woman.  It  was  by  no  means  a  question  of  hysterics. 

"See  here,  Miss  Sydenham,"  she  said,  "you  are  a 
woman — at  least  I  suppose  you  are — or  have  been,  at 
some  time.  It  is  like  this :  Arthur  and  I  have  been 
married  for  several  years,  and  I  have  suffered  a  good 
deal  during  those  years.  I  was  an  actress,  but  I  left 
the  stage  to  please  him.  I  withdrew  from  the  strug- 
gle, and  at  the  time  was  glad  to  do  so.  I — I  wor- 
shipped him.  There  could  be  no  matinee  girl  that 
ever  looked  upon  him  as  I  did.  He  deceived  me,,  not 
.once  or  twice,  but  many  times,  and  I  bore  it  all  in 
silence,  and  still  loved  him.  I  have  humiliated  myself 
more  than  I  should  care  to  say,  until  I  felt  that  I  was 
no  longer  a  woman  but  a  shadow,  hovering  around 
him,  and  thankful  for  the  privilege  of  being  allowed 
to  hover.  His  plea  was  always  the  same  thing:  pub- 
licity meant  ruin.  My  ruin,  which  was  achieved  long 


194  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ago,  did  not  appeal  to  him  at  all.  Of  late  I  was  never 
able  to  discover  anything  tangible,  but  we  have  lived 
in  an  atmosphere  of  indifference  and  apathy  that  was 
appalling.  As  soon  as  I  learned  the  truth — that  he 
has  a  mistress  and  an  apartment — I  resolved  to  end  it 
all.  Kind  friends  threw  out  hints,  and  although  I 
have  no  idea  of  the  name  of  the  woman  or  of  the  lo- 
cality of  her  apartment,  I  am  now  prepared  to  take 
the  final  step.  I  will  not  prostitute  myself  by  wearing 
his  name,  and  I  will  show  every  woman  who  had  ad- 
mired him  as  an  actor,  what  he  is  as  a  man.  The  mati- 
nee idol  shall  come  down  from  his  pedestal." 

She  paused,  a  trifle  breathless,  but  not  at  all  fervid. 
She  seemed  to  be  repeating  a  lesson,  and  to  Sallie's 
ears  it  all  appeared  irrevocable  as  the  crack  of  doom. 

"Yet  you  loved  him,"  she  said.  Her  woman's  in- 
stincts were  all  with  this  pitifully  disciplined  little 
woman,  and  her  anger  struggled  for  expression.  Her 
hatred  of  the  man  gleamed  in  her  eyes,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment she  forgot  her  mission.  The  next  .  .  .  and  she 
recalled  the  grim  intricacy  of  the  web.  It  was  not  the 
wife  of  the  actor,  but  the  cousin  of  the  man  who  con- 
cerned her.  So  she  said :  "Yet  you  loved  him." 

"Of  course,"  assented  Mrs.  Stuyvesant.  "Otherwise 
I  could  never  have  endured  my  life  as  long  as  I  have 
managed  to  do.  He  has  always  known  that  I  loved  him, 
and  has  traded  upon  my  weakness  and  devotion.  If 
you  are  listening  to  my  remarks  with  a  view  to  pub- 
lishing them,  I  trust,  Miss  Sydenham,  that  you  will  not 
convey  the  impression  that  I  am  repining.  That  is  all 
over.  I  am  simply  a  woman  longing  to  free  herself, 
and  absolutely  determined  to  do  it  at  all  costs." 

Sallie  saw  that  hope  began  to  look  anaemic  and  wan, 
and  she  was  utterly  at  a  loss  what  to  do.  She  tried  to 
oust  from  her  mind  all  interest  in  the  woman  before 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  195 

her,  and  to  realize  that  the  words  to  which  she  had 
just  listened  meant  the  dire  perdition  of  her  case.  This 
tensely  aggrieved  wife  would  hasten  the  tragedy  of  the 
end.  She  sat  there  perplexed  and  meditative. 

"It  is  a  horrible  vengeance,"  she  said  presently ;  but 
she  said  it  emphatically,  for  she  was  urged  on  by  a 
mental  picture  of  Jack  Childers  crushed  by  the  knowl- 
edge of  Ivy's  infamy  and  asphyxiated  by  the  noisome 
scandal.  "It  is  a  horrible  vengeance.  Is  it — is  it  quite 
justifiable,  Mrs.  Stuyvesant?  Yes,  you  think  so  now. 
Have  you  thought  what  your  sensations  will  be  when 
the  newspapers  thresh  out  all  the  details  of  the  affair 
and  the  whole  skeleton  is  revealed?" 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  looked  at  her  coldly.  "You  are 
an  unusual  reporter,"  she  said;  "an  extremely  disin- 
terested one,  apparently.  You  appear  to  be  thinking 
of  me,  rather  than  of  yourself.  You  should  surely  be 
gratified  at  the  points  I  have  given  you,  and  the  glow- 
ing story  you  could  weave  around  them.  Think  of  it ! 
'The  deserted  wife  talks.'  'Mrs.  Stuyvesant  on  the 
war-path.'  'Startling  events  in  the  domestic  life  of  a 
favorite  actor.'  Ha!  Ha!" 

The  laugh  grated  upon  Sallie's  nerves.  It  was  so 
direly  devoid  of  human  sympathy.  She  wondered 
what  this  woman  must  have  endured  before  she  could 
have  landed  herself  upon  this  hard  rock  of  coldly  vin- 
dictive determination. 

"As  you  know,"  Sallie  said  lamely,  "I  am  not  a  re- 
porter, and  this  is  the  first  assignment  I  have  ever 
undertaken.  I  am  quite  a  novice  at  it." 

"I  thought  so,"  assented  the  other.  "I  was  sure  of 
it.  My  acquaintance  with  reporters  is  fairly  extensive. 
I  have  seen  them  in  all  styles,  and  under  all  circum- 
stances, as  you  may  well  imagine.  And  I  should  ad- 
vise you,  Miss  Sydenham,  to  be  satisfied,  and  to  realize 


196  A   Girl  Who  Wrote 

that  you  have  acquired  a  story.  I  may  also  tell  you 
that  I  should  not  have  received  you  if  I  had  not  un- 
wittingly let  you  in.  I  should  simply  not  have  troubled 
myself;  for,  after  all,  there  are  surer  ways  of  acting 
than  through  the  newspapers.  They  may  come  later." 

There  was  but  one  thing  to  do,  and  distasteful 
though  it  was,  Sallie  decided  to  do  it.  In  face  of  this 
icy  resolve,  this  unyielding  armor  of  determination, 
Sallie  saw  that  the  land  was  slipping  fast  from  her 
feet  .  .  .  that  she  was  achieving  nothing  but  mortifi- 
cation. 

"Listen  to  me,  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,"  she  said.  "You  did 
me  the  honor,  a  short  time  ago,  to  remark  that  I  was  a 
woman,  or  you  supposed  that  I  was,  or  that  I  had 
been  at  some  time.  You  are  right;  I  am  a  woman. 
And  I — I  am  deceiving  you,  as  well  as — as  the  news- 
paper that  I  represent.  For  I  have  come  to  see  you 
to-night,  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  for  no  other  reason  than — 
than  because  I  know  the  woman  who  has  caused  all 
this  trouble." 

Sallie  watched  her  eagerly,  and  waited  to  see  the  ice 
melt  in  the  fervor  of  this  statement.  She  expected 
to  see  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  rise  and  in  frenzy  demand  the 
name  of  her  rival.  She  anticipated  the  usual  signs  of 
acute  feminine  emotion — heaving  bosom,  dilated  nos- 
trils, rapid  respiration. 

The  actor's  wife  betrayed  no  such  banal  manifesta- 
tions, and  into  Sallie's  mind  was  borne  the  fact  that  the 
case  was  desperate  indeed,  for  it  had  not  a  leg  of  hu- 
man sentiment  to  stand  upon. 

"In  that  case/'  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  remarked,  in  chill 
indignation,  "we  need  bandy  words  no  longer.  I  saw 
from  the  first  that  you  were  not  a  mere  news  gatherer. 
Still,  it  was  rather  a  pitiful  subterfuge,  don't  you 
think,  Miss  Sydenham  ?  And  if,  at  the  same  time,  you 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  197 

are  lacking  in  loyalty  to  your  newspaper  ...  I  con- 
gratulate you.  You  are  doing  well.  You  .  .  ." 

"Stop!"  cried  Sallie,  stung  by  a  truth  that  had  not 
suggested  itself  to  her  before.  "Perhaps  I  can  say  to 
you  as  you  said  to  me :  that  you  were  once  a  woman — 
or  I  may  suppose  that  you  were.  Do  you  imagine  that 
it  has  cost  me  nothing  to  come  to  you,  and  to  talk  as 
I  have  done.  Yes,  I  have  deceived  you,  and  I  am  lack- 
ing in  loyalty  to  my  newspaper.  But  there  are  reasons 
which  you  would  understand,  or  would  have  under- 
stood at  one  time.  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  I  am  appealing 
to  the  woman  who  once  loved  that  man,  and  suffered 
for  him.  There  are  reasons  for  this  visit.  I  know 
the  girl  who  is  involved  with  Mr.  Stuyvesant,  and — 
and  if  the  matter  is  exposed  to  the  public  '.  .  .  oh,  I 
daren't  think  of  it !  The  consequences  would  be  too 
dreadful  to  contemplate." 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant's  expression  softened.  The  iron 
left  it,  and  slowly,  it  seemed,  the  rigidity  of  her  man- 
ner lost  a  trifle  of  its  tension.  Perhaps  the  knowledge 
that  she  was  not  alone  in  her  misery  had  something  to 
do  with  this.  But  it  was  more  probably  due  to  the 
bifurcation  of  the  road  that  led  her  from  that  one 
grimly  trodden  thoroughfare  with  which,  she  was  so 
gloomily  familiar. 

"You  know  the  girl !"  she  repeated.  "I  am  sorry  for 
the  girl,  for  she  will  suffer.  And  she  would  suffer  just 
as  inevitably,  if,  at  this  moment,  I  were  to  fall  dead. 
Any  woman  unfortunate  enough  to  love  Arthur  Stuy- 
vesant must  suffer  sooner  or  later,  whatever  happens." 

A  gleam  of  light  seemed  to  illumine  the  situation. 
Sallie,  twisted  in  her  chair,  her  hands  grasping  her 
humped  knees,  saw  the  change  in  Mrs.  Stuyvesant's 
expression. 

"I  wish  I  knew  you  better,"  she  said,  "so  that  I 


198  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

might  appeal  to  you  with  more  success.  This  girl  .  .  . 
that  I  know  ...  is  not  what  you  might  imagine  her 
to  be.  She  is  literally  one  of  those  matinee  girls  of 
whom  you  have  spoken.  Yes,  I  believe  that  she  must 
be  innately  bad — cruel,  relentless,  indifferent.  She 
must  be  something  even  worse,"  she  added  viciously, 
hugging  her  knees,  until  her  chin  almost  rested  upon 
them,  "for  she  has  sacrificed  a  good,  honest,  loyal  man 
— a  gentleman  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  She  has 
wrecked  his  life — as  your  husband  has  wrecked  yours. 
She  has  brought  reputable  names  into  infamy.  He 
trusted  her  .  .  .  they  had  grown  up  together  .  .  . 
they  were  almost  brother  and  sister  .  .  .  and  he  .  .  ." 

"I  understand,"  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  asserted  compla- 
cently ;  "you  are  in  love  with  him !" 

Sallie  dropped  her  knees,  and  stared  in  bewilderment 
at  the  woman.  Had  she  been  a  mystic,  dabbling  in  the 
latency  of  mind,  a  clairvoyant  seeing  blurred  shadows 
luminously,  this  remark  could  not  have  sounded  more 
wonderful.  Then  she  flushed  furiously,  for  it  was  the 
first  time  that  she  had  heard  this  truth  humanly  ex- 
pressed. It  was  the  first  time,  except  in  self-acknowl- 
edgment, that  she  had  been  confronted  with  it.  It 
sounded  strange  and  marvellously  presumptuous.  And 
it  sounded  fantastic  and  adorable.  Coming,  as  it  did, 
from  the  lips  of  a  woman  utterly  unknown  to  her,  she 
could  not  stifle  a  sense  of  the  supernormal.  It  was 
the  sort  of  statement  that  would  have  paralyzed  her 
with  wonder,  had  it  issued  from  the  brain  of  Mrs.  Piper 
in  a  trance. 

"You  know!"  she  exclaimed  in  such  awe,  that  the 
faded  little  wife  of  the  actor  smiled  in  all  human  in- 
dulgence. "Yes,  it  is  true,  although  I  have  never  said 
it  before.  It  is  not  necessary  to  talk  about  it,  because 
it  is  outside  the  question,  and  it  is  just  a  personal 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  199 

matter  that  nobody  will  ev.er  know.  It  is  also  one- 
sided, Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  because  ...  he  is  engaged  to 
...  the  girl." 

"And  you  are  afraid  that  he  will  discover  her  de- 
ceit .  .  .  you  would  let  him  marry  her,  if  nothing  were 
found  out?" 

Sallie  writhed  at  this  cross-examination.  She  felt 
that  she  was  on  the  rack.  The  tables  were  turning 
upon  her,  and  the  woman  she  had  set  out  to  investigate 
was  investigating  her!  It  was  quite  unnecessary. 
She  was  not  at  all  afraid  to  suffer — it  was,  perhaps, 
just  a  foretaste  of  what  she  would  be  called  upon  to 
endure  later  on.  But  it  did  not  seem  relevant  to  the 
matter  under  discussion  .  .  .  unless  Mrs.  Stuyvesant 
should  be  divine  enough  to  pity  her,  and,  for  her  sake, 
relinquish  her  schemes.  Of  course,  she  hoped  for 
something  of  the  sort,  but  she  hoped  for  it  with  less 
bleeding  from  her  own  personal  laceration. 

"I  do  not  know  what  I  should  do,"  Sallie  replied  to 
the  last  question.  "No.  I  do  not  believe  I  could  let 
him  marry  her." 

"Then,"  said  the  other,  not  unkindly,  but  with  a 
practical  flavor  that  made  Sallie's  blood  run  cold,  "be 
satisfied,  and  do  not  worry.  Let  things  take  their 
course.  She  will  be  discovered,  and  he  will  know  it, 
and  if  he  ever  loved  her  he  will  then  hate  her.  ...  It 
will  be  your  turn.  .  .  .  And  to  put  your  mind  quite 
at  rest,  Miss  Sydenham,  I  may  tell  you  that  I  have 
set  the  machinery  in  motion,  and  that  nothing  can  stop 
it  ...  now." 

"You  have  done  that?"  Sallie  cried  vehemently,  ris- 
ing, and  standing  before  the  little  faded  woman. 
"You  have  done  that?  That  is  what  I  feared,  and 
that  is  why  I  came.  And  I  thought  that  by  telling 
you  the  truth,  as  I  have  done,  I  might  possibly — just 


200  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

possibly — arouse  your  sympathy.  I  had  no  right  to 
think  it,  but  there  was  just  the  chance.  And  you  be- 
lieve that  if  he  turned  from  her  .  .  .  that  I  ...  no, 
you  cannot  think  it.  If  that  were  the  case  I  could  not 
say  that  I  loved  him.  I  would  give  my  life  if  all  this 
could  be  undone,  and  he  might  marry  her,  and" — with 
a  smile — "live  happily  ever  afterwards.  That  is  im- 
possible, but  I  want  to  spare  him  as  much  as  I  can  .  .  . 
and  soften  the  blow.  And  you  must  surely  understand 
that  when  I  do  that,  I  shall  give  up  even  his  friendship 
— for  it  will  be  a  cold,  cruel,  but  necessary  thing  to  do." 

For  the  first  time  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  showed  signs  of 
genuine  emotion.  Her  armor  caved  in,  and  she  saw 
that  she  was  confronted  by  real  human  anguish  .  .  . 
the  veritable  anguish  that  she  herself  had  sampled  so 
thoroughly.  She  put  her  hands  on  Sallie's  shoulders 
and  looked  tenderly  into  her  eyes. 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  she  said,  "and  I  do  quite  under- 
stand it  all.  You  love  him  in  the  true,  unselfish  way, 
as  I  once  loved  Arthur — when  I  gave  up  everything 
for  his  sake.  I  am  desperately  sorry.  It  seems  hard 
that  this  horrible  muddle  in  my  life  should  involve 
others.  If  I  could  help  you  I  would  gladly  do  it, 
but—" 

"You  will — you  will !  "  cried  Sallie,  taking  her  hand, 
and  crushing  it. 

"I  cannot,"  was  the  answer.  "  It  is  out  of  my  hands. 
The  man  you  saw  leaving  my  apartment  to-night  was 
a  private  detective,  whom  I  have  employed.  He  will 
acquaint  me,  in  due  course,  with  the  name  of  the  girl, 
and  the  address  of  the  rendezvous." 

"I  can  tell  you  both,"  Sallie  said  impulsively,  "if  you 
will  only  recall  him.  You  can  do  that.  You  will  do  it, 
I  am  sure." 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  sat  down,  and  passed  a  hand  wear- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  201 

ily  over  her  forehead.  Sallie  noticed  the  wedding- 
ring  on  the  third  finger  of  the  left  hand.  It  was  one 
of  those  very  wide  rings  that  men  give  to  their  wives, 
as  though  determined  that  the  golden  fetter  shall  not  be 
overlooked.  The  woman  seemed  to  be  horribly  op- 
pressed. Sallie  stood  and  waited,  like  an  agonized 
creature  pausing  for  the  fateful  verdict.  The  photo- 
graphs in  the  room  seemed  to  leer  at  her  .  .  .  espe- 
cially the  glaring  Roman  picture  of  the  actor  in  his 
toga. 

The  wife  arose  at  last,  and  taking  Sallie's  hand,  led 
her  to  a  door.  She  opened  it  softly,  and  there,  in  a 
dimly  lighted  room,  lay  a  small  boy,  with  fair  hair,  fast 
asleep.  The  face  was  flushed  and  rested  on  a  chubby 
arm.  They  stood  and  listened  to  the  regular  breath- 
ing. 

"That  is  his  son,  Miss  Sydenham,"  she  said ;  and  the 
ice  had  entered  into  her  voice  again.  "You  would 
have  thought  that  for  his  boy's  sake  he  would  have 
spared  us  all  this.  A  woman — well,  a  man  tires  of  a 
woman,  especially  of  a  woman  who  is  foolish  enough 
to  love  him  too  devotedly.  But  the  boy!  I  cannot 
let  this  baby  suffer,  as  he  must  do,  with  a  profligate 
father  ever  before  him,  and  these  horrible  scandals 
always  cropping  up.  If  I  died,  the  boy  would  go  to 
him,  and  to  his  women  and  his  apartments.  I  must  be 
free  ...  to  go  away  with  the  boy,  and  begin  life  again 
somewhere.  Yes,  I  am  truly  and  desperately  sorry 
for  you ;  but  the  boy  .  .  .  " 

"But  the  boy  will  be  smirched  in  it  all."  Sallie's 
voice  fell.  She  was  beside  herself. 

"It  will  not  matter  now,"  said  Mrs.  Stuyvesant. 
"He  is  too  young  to  understand.  Later  on,  he  would 
know  .  .  .  and  later  on,  it  would  be  bound  to  happen. 
But  this  .  .  .  this  much,  Miss  Sydenham,  I  will  do, 


202  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

for  your  sake.  I  shall  not  ask  you  the  girl's  name,  nor 
the  address  of  the  meeting-place.  I  could  do  so  ... 
and  you  would  tell  me.  If  the  detective  should  dis- 
cover nothing  ...  if  his  work  should  prove  to  be 
fruitless  ...  as  it  might  do,  you  know;  if  they  were 
warned  ...  if  they  knew  that  discovery  was  immi- 
nent ..." 

She  stopped,  and  looked  at  Sallie.  The  boy  moved 
in  his  sleep,  and  the  coverlet  revealed  one  small,  lithe 
foot.  The  mother  went  in  and  rearranged  the  bed, 
standing  over  him  for  a  moment  in  contemplation. 
Then  she  rejoined  Sallie  and  closed  the  door  softly. 
The  two  women  were  silent  for  a  long  time,  but  to  one 
of  them  the  woof  of  the  tragedy  seemed  less  dense. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Sallie  tremulously — "thank  you. 
You  are  a  good  woman,  and  you  have  suffered — how 
you  must  have  suffered!  It  is  perhaps  selfish  of  me. 
Even  unselfishness,  I  suppose,  can  be  selfish." 

But  her  heart  was  lighter  as  she  ran  down  the  stairs, 
certain  that  the  dreadful  scandal  could  be  averted. 
She  had  been  deeply  touched  by  this  interview ;  but  her 
sense  of  relief  was  so  great  that  she  was  unable  to 
dwell  upon  the  facts  to  which  she  had  listened.  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  must,  of  course,  be  warned  in  such  a  way 
that  his  detection  would  be  difficult.  If  she  only  had 
the  courage  to  go  to  him  and  confront  him!  She 
lacked  it.  Her  sense  of  repulsion  was  so  overwhelm- 
ing that  though  her  reason  pointed  out  to  her  the  ad- 
visability of  a  personal  interview,  she  was  absolutely 
unable  to  undertake  it. 

As  soon  as  she  reached  her  home  she  wrote  to  "Mr. 
Compton,"  at  his  address.  "When  you  get  this,"  ran 
her  letter,  "you  can  look  upon  it  as  a  warning.  De- 
tectives are  watching  you,  to  discover  where  you  meet 
your  mistress"  (she  hated  the  word,  but  she  wrote  it, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  203 

and  even  underlined  it).  "Listen  to  advice,  and  do  not 
visit  your  apartment  again.  If  you  do,  your  name 
will  be  dragged  into  publicity,  and  there  will  be  a  hor- 
rible scandal.  You  will  be  ruined." 

She  did  not  sign  it.  Although  anonymous  letters 
never  appealed  to  her,  she  knew  that  in  a  case  like  this 
her  mission  could  not  fail  to  make  itself  understood. 
She  read  the  note  over,  and  was  satisfied  that  she  had 
made  it  quite  strong  enough.  Then  she  added  this: 
"There  is  one  newspaper  in  this  city  that  is  awaiting  a 
story  with  great  impatience."  That  would  surely 
clinch  it.  Perhaps  he  would  recall  her  words  to  him 
on  the  night  of  the  owls'  reception.  Memory  played 
strange  pranks,  and  her  written  words  might  awaken 
responses  from  latent  sources  in  the  store-house  of  his 
mind.  At  any  rate,  nobody  could  resist  such  a  letter, 
coming,  as  it  would  do,  right  into  the  very  thick  of  the 
flagrant  delit. 

Sallie  was  satisfied.  She  took  the  letter  herself  and 
posted  it.  She  looked  into  the  letter-box  to  see  that  it 
had  not  wedged  itself  into  the  metal  .  .  .  that  it  had 
reached  a  position  where  it  would  not  go  astray.  Then 
she  went  back,  in  better  spirits  than  she  had  known  for 
many  days.  And  the  heart  of  Rosina  was  rejoiced  as 
she  noticed  Sallie's  lightness  of  mood,  and  some  of  her 
old-time  vivacity. 

It  was  Ivy  Hampton  who  received  the  letter  ad- 
dressed to  "Mr.  Compton"  next  day.  The  handwrit- 
ing on  the  envelope  puzzled  her,  and,  like  Mr.  Pick- 
wick, she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  clue  lay 
inside.  She  opened  it,  read  it,  crumpled  it  up  con- 
temptuously, and  threw  it  away. 

"It  might  appeal  to  him,"  she  said  to  herself.  "It 
does  not  impress  me  at  all." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

JALLIE'S  serious  moods  began  to  reflect  them- 
selves in  her  work.  Unconsciously  her  light, 
bantering,  satirical,  reckless  "style"  became 
more  reflective  and  subdued,  and  she  "saw" 
realities  when  she  was  dealing  with  mimic  facts.  The 
problems  of  the  theatre  seemed  to  enmesh  themselves 
in  her  own  recent  experiences  of  metropolitan  life. 
She  felt  that  she  was  growing  "dignified,"  and  that  the 
many  people  who  had  affected  to  despise  her  frivolity 
and  the  scatter-brain  quality  of  her  criticism,  would 
undoubtedly  look  with  relief  upon  her  conversion. 

They  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  and  Sallie's  experience 
was  merely  one  that  falls  to  anyone  that  dares  to  be 
original.  The  very  men  who  had  pretended  to  de- 
spise her  frivolity  now  sighed  at  her  "heaviness." 
This  moral  sentiment  was -most  worthy,  but  they  didn't 
like  it.  They  skimmed  through  her  articles  to  gloat 
over  persiflage  at  which  they  had  formerly  rebelled, 
and  were  ardently  disappointed  when  they  failed  to 
discover  it. 

The  feminine  owls  were  the  first  to  notice  the  cloud, 
no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  that  darkened  Miss  Syd- 
enham's  contributions.  But  instead  of  rejoicing  to 
find  a  quality  that  they  professed  to  admire,  and  cele- 
brating Sallie's  access  to  dignity  by  some  slight  ebul- 
lition of  praise,  they  were  more  obstinately  opposed  to 
her  than  ever. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  opined  that  it  was  ridiculous  to 
lavish  a  large  salary  upon  perfunctory  writing  that  an 
office-boy  could  supply;  Lamp- Post  Lucy  declared 
that  Sallie's  "speciality"  was  on  the  wane,  and  that  this 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  205 

new  "experiment"  was  positively  laughable;  the  pale 
poetess  sniffed  at  it  as  a  pose,  and  intimated  that 
Sallie's  assumption  of  womanhood  was  preposterous; 
Happy  Hippy  confessed  that  Miss  Sydenham's  change 
of  spirit  was  perhaps  meritorious,  but  certainly  tardy. 
Eva  Higgins  and  Mamie  Munson  asserted  that  this 
apparent  respectability  was  forced  upon  Sallie  by  the 
strict  instructions  of  "the  powers  that  be."  These  owls 
were  all  highly  aggrieved  at  the  girl's  irreproachable 
criticisms,  which  deprived  them  of  gossip,  and  cut  off  a 
prolific  source  of  inflammatory  cackle. 

If  Sallie  had  cared,  she  would  have  known  that  there 
was  nothing  more  fatal  to  success  than  the  dire  con- 
ventionality that  agrees  with  the  conviction — or  lack  of 
conviction — of  the  many.  But  she  did  not  care,  nor 
was  she  quite  conscious  of  the  slight  haze  of  solemnity 
that  veiled  her  humor.  She  only  knew  that  the  nightly 
task  of  dashing  off  a  column,  in  a  sort  of  fevered  be- 
wilderment and  abnormal  exaltation,  was  just  at  pres- 
ent almost  superhumanly  onerous.  ...  It  weighed 
her  down,  and  she  abandoned  the  effort  to  "get  into 
the  mood."  Sallie  had  never  realized  before  how 
blessedly  free  from  worry  she  had  been.  She  felt 
just  now,  that  no  mere  pecuniary  remuneration  could 
repay  her  for  this  terrible  struggle  for  vitality  .  .-. 
this  awful  effort  to  continue.  .  .  . 

Arthur  Stuyvesant's  first  appearance  in  a  new  "so- 
ciety play,"  that  had  been  written  for  him  by  a  well- 
known  London  playwright,  was  "the  event"  of  the 
season.  It  occurred  a  few  nights  after  Sallie's  inter- 
view with  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  and  she  hailed  it  gladly. 
It  had  been  largely  advertised  as  dealing  with  "life" 
(whenever  the  stage  talks  of  "life,"  it  means  the 
wrong  side,  or  the  shady  and  not  cosy  corners),  and 
it  occurred  to  Sallie  that  she  might  be  able  to  hurt 


206  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

him,  to  make  him  writhe,  to  get  beneath  the  hide  that 
he  wore  for  skin,  and  to  hold  him  up  for  condemna- 
tion. For  in  Stuyvesant's  case  the  actor  meant  simply 
the  man.  He  was  lacking  in  genius — even  in  talent — 
even  in  picturesque  mediocrity.  If  she  could  but 
prick  the  bubble,  with  its  prismatic  tints,  and  give  to 
the  public  .  .  .  just  a  few  spots  of  soapy  spray. 

She  was  surprised  and  pained  when,  at  the  door  of 
the  theatre,  she  found  her  erstwhile  devoted  escort, 
Charlie  Covington,  patiently  awaiting  her.  He  had 
not  appeared  at  one  or  two  of  the  last  "openings"  that 
she  had  criticized.  She  had  not  seen  him  since  he  had 
.  .  .  since  the  night  of  the  Welsh  rabbit,  and  the 
woman  in  the  red  blouse,  and  that  very  foolish  speech 
of  his.  She  had  supposed  that  this  would  be  the  end 
of  their  intercourse,  and  the  idea  had  irritated  her. 
The  wrong  man  is  seldom  pathetic  to  a  woman,  except 
in  novels  and  plays,  when  the  woman  claims  his  father 
and  mother,  to  become  his  sister. 

Charlie  Covington,  at  any  rate,  looked  bland  and 
smiling,  in  all  the  glory  of  evening-dress  and  a  white 
chrysanthemum.  He  did  not  suggest  to  her,  in  the 
least,  the  rejected  lover,  and  she  felt  a  sense  of  relief 
in  the  certainty  that  he  would  not  begin  again. 

"I  felt  that  I  could  not  miss  this  play,"  he  said  elab- 
orately, "so  I  thought  I  might  claim  the  extra  ticket. 
You  are  alone  ?" 

"Alone  and  unfettered,"  she  replied  lightly.  "My 
list  of  escorts  is  still  limited  to  yourself,  Charlie. 
When  you  fail  me,  I  shall  have  to  advertise,  'Critic 
wants  escort  for  first  nights.  One  without  decided 
views  preferable.'  " 

Her  words  were  easy,  but  he  could  see  that  it  cost 
her  an  effort  to  utter  them.  He  thought  that  she 
looked  very  ill,  although  she  was  hectically  rouged 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  207 

and  as  slouchily  dressed  as  usual.  They  went  into  the 
theatre,  and  he  noticed  her  fatigue,  and  a  dejection  that 
she  seemed  unable  to  overcome.  And  she  was  think- 
ing how  this  man  might  have  helped  her  if  she  had 
dared  to  confide  in  him.  That  idea,  however,  was  be- 
yond the  faintest  consideration.  She  was  afraid  of 
herself.  If  an  absolute  stranger  could  discern,  from 
a  few  desultory  remarks,  that  the  man  for  whom  she 
was  doing  a  horrid  thing,  was  the  man  whom  she  was 
insane  enough  to  love,  Charlie  Covington  would  very 
soon  know  that  fact,  and  it  would  be  too  humiliating! 
.  .  .  Besides,  an  unconscious  sense  of  chivalry  for- 
bade her  to  discuss  Jack  Childers  and  Ivy  Hampton  in 
such  tortuous  relations,  even  with  so  loyal  a  friend  as 
poor  old  Charlie.  But  in  his  diffident  and  well-mean- 
ing way,  he  stirred  the  thick  and  opaque  mass  of  nause- 
ous gruel  that  was  simmering,  always  simmering 
(and  soon  it  must  boil  uproariously)  before  her  eyes. 

"I've  been  watching  the  paper  for  that  story,  Sallie," 
he  said.  "I  was  wondering  if  you  were  saving  it  for 
Stuyvesant's  opening — as  a  sort  of  boomerang.  But  it 
hasn't  appeared.  When  are  you  going  to  give  it  to  a 
palpitating  public?" 

She  was  reading  her  programme  carefully.  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  headed  the  list  of  dramatis  persons  as 
"Lord  Algernon  Chetwynd,"  with  no  apologies  to  the 
Family  Herald.  "There  will  be  no  story,"  she  said 
slowly.  "It  was — it  was  all  a  mistake." 

"Ah!"  he  exclaimed.  "Well,  I'm  glad  of  it.  I'm 
not  a  city  editor,  and  I  can  feel  pleasure  at  the  thought 
that  even  an  actor  isn't  as  black  as  he's  painted.  I 
suppose  old  Green  felt  very  cut  up?" 

On  the  rack  again !  V'lan !  Biff.  "I  have  not  told 
him  yet,"  she  said.  "I — I  have  not  had  time.  Prob- 
ably"— with  a  laugh — "he's  forgotten  all  about  it." 


208  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"No,  he  hasn't,  Sallie,"  Charlie  Covington  declared 
quietly.  "Don't  you  believe  it.  You  are  new  to  re- 
portorial  work,  and, -if  I  were  you,  I  should  tell  him 
at  once.  It  is  best  to  do  so,  because  he  will  think  that 
you  are  shirking.  It  is  a  reporter's  duty  to  ...  re- 
port. Get  it  off  your  mind,  Sallie,  and  let  this  be  the 
last  assignment  you  ever  get  mixed  up  in.  It  probably 
will  be,  because  city  editors  have  a  sort  of  superstitious 
belief  that  if  a  reporter  fails  to  get  a  story — even  if 
there  be  none  to  get — it  is  his  own  particular  fault." 

She  knew  that  he  had  her  own  welfare  in  mind,  and 
could  not  avoid  a  sense  of  gratitude,  even  though  he 
were  trotting  out  this  gaunt  spectre  when  she  would 
have  been  glad  to  forget  it.  He  was  quite  right.  She 
had  been  procrastinating  in  the  belief  that  there  was 
always  time  to  tell  Mr.  Green  .  .  .  that  she  had  noth- 
ing to  tell  him.  He  had  been  ominously  silent  .  .  . 
yes,  it  was  ominous  .  .  .  but  she  had  carefully  avoided 
him.  She  had  even  written  her  copy  in  telegraph  of- 
fices, and  sent  it  by  special  messenger,  rather  than  meet 
Mr.  Green.  Those  wheels  of  journalism!  It  never 
occurred  to  her  that  they  would  whiz,  as  they  had 
always  whizzed — whether  she  were  there  to  give  them 
a  twirl  with  one  white  impuissant  finger,  or  whether 
she  were  in  the  antipodes. 

"Yes,  Charlie,"  she  said  obediently,  "I  will  tell  him." 

"Did  you  discover  that  it  was  all  absolutely  ground- 
less?" 

"Absolutely — absolutely — absolutely,"  she  cried,  ly- 
ing tenaciously,  as  a  sort  of  rehearsal  for  her  talk  with 
Mr.  Green.  "Stuyvesant  and  his  wife  do  not  agree 
very  well" — she  thought  she  would  try  how  this 
sounded,  and  all  the  time  she  endeavored  to  regard 
Charlie  as  the  city  editor — "she  is  jealous  of  him,  as  he 
certainly  is  rather  gay.  But  the  rendezvous,  and  the 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  209 

veiled  lady,  and  the  divorce  are  all  fiction.  The  only 
truth  seems  to  be  that  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  did  at  one  time 
engage  a  detective.  That  is  all  ...  the  only  little  bit 
of  fire  in  all  this  smoke." 

"Good !"  exclaimed  Charlie ;  and  she  was  delighted. 
She  had  told  her  mendacious  story,  and  it  had  been 
pleasantly  swallowed  by  Mr.  Covington.  She  might 
therefore  confidently  expect  that  it  would  be  received 
just  as  satisfactorily  by  Mr.  Green.  It  gave  her  cour- 
age, and  she  grew  chatty,  and  lively,  and  glad  that 
Charlie  had  met  her.  For  the  knowledge  that  she 
would  have  to  "report"  before  she  was  definitely  re- 
lieved from  her  self-imposed  duty  had  undoubtedly 
daunted  her.  Now — now  she  told  herself,  there  was 
no  need  to  hurry.  She  would  wait  until  Mr.  Green  sent 
for  her,  and  if  he  were  angry  .  .  .  she  would  laugh, 
and  say  outrageous  things,  and  be  jolly,  and  amusing, 
and  .  .  .  oh,  she  knew  the  office.  She  had  never  yet 
failed  to  carry  the  day.  And  at  first,  of  course,  she 
would  appear  dreadfully  disconcerted  at  the  loss  of  the 
anticipated  story,  as  all  good  reporters  did  at  the  evap- 
oration of  a  ten-dollar  assignment. 

She  shuddered  as  she  saw  Stuyvesant  appear,  smug, 
smiling,  and  bowing  to  the  "ovation"  for  which  he  de- 
liberately waited,  and  for  which  the  ushers  worked  so 
laboriously.  Lord  Algernon  Chetwynd  was  to  her  the 
most  repulsive  object  she  could  look  upon  .  .  .  this 
reptile  that  stood  between  a  brave,  fair,  chivalrous  man 
and  the  girl  he  had  selected  to  marry.  .  .  .  The  cir- 
cumstances of  the  play  were  not  utterly  dissimilar  to 
those  of  the  real  drama.  Lord  Algernon  loved  the  in- 
genue, but  he  was  "tied"  to  a  wife  whose  beauty  had 
been  marred  by  smallpox,  who  was  a  hopeless  wreck, 
a  spectacle  so  abhorrent  that  one  could  not  look  at  her 
without  repugnance.  He  was,  at  first,  true  to  her  .  .  . 


210  A   Girl  Who  Wrote 

for  the  sake  of  pity,  and  of  auld  lang  syne.  And  the 
audience  was  asked  to  sympathize  with  his  struggle; 
to  admire  the  loyalty  that  was  gradually  undermined 
by  love  "pure  and  soulful."  The  problem  to  solve 
was,  whether  he  was  justified  in  his  subsequent  liaison 
with  innocence.  And  of  course  the  audience  solved  it, 
for  the  playwright  was  a  good  one,  in  an  exuberant  af- 
firmative. He  was  justified.  The  cunning  playwright 
said  lovely  things  to  further  his  own  purposes  and  used 
the  word  "soul"  freely  whenever  he  meant  "body."  It 
was  very  deft.  It  was  the  sort  of  psychology  that  tells 
nowadays — when  its  recipients  are  hysterical  women. 
There  was  a  time  when  Sallie  would  have  laughed 
heartily  at  a  play  of  this  calibre.  She  had  seen  many 
such,  and  had  defeated  their  object  by  piercing  them 
with  ridicule.  The  "problem"  play  once  pricked  by 
wholesome  humor  collapses  like  a  child's  toy  balloon. 
Its  size  is  merely  a  matter  of  careful  inflation.  It  is 
not  solid,  with  hearty  substance;  it  is  gas,  ready  to 
escape  into  the  elements  at  a  moment's  notice.  She 
could  have  routed  Lord  Algernon  abjectly,  and  have 
forever  ruined  his  chances  with  a  gullible  and  non- 
thinking public,  if  she  had  let  herself  loose  in  the  old 
way  that  had  won  renown  for  her.  She  could  have 
disabled  him,  and  forced  his  poison  back  into  his  own 
veins,  if  she  had  played  her  usual  felicitous  trick  of 
seeming  to  out-ribald  ribaldry  and  to  out-shriek  the 
shrieking.  This  always  appeared  to  Charlie  Coving- 
ton,  and  to  others  who  thought  on  the  surface  only,  to 
be  a  very  violent  remedy;  but  it  was  infallible.  She 
had  laid  two  Pinero  plays  as  stark  corpses  amid  the 
wreckage  of  a  previous  theatrical  season,  for  they  had 
dealt  sympathetically  with  "problems"  that  the  world 
had  taken  centuries  to  solve,  and  had  solved  irrevoca- 
bly, and  forever. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  211 

But  on  this  occasion  Sallie's  humor  was  temporarily 
extinct.  She  took  the  play  seriously,  and  it  nauseated 
her.  She  was  horribly  in  earnest  about  it,  and  pink 
spots  appeared  through  her  rouge  as  the  final  curtain 
fell,  and  the  suave,  smirking  actor  was  vociferously  ac- 
claimed, standing  beside  the  white  muslin  ingenue  who, 
it  was  understood,  would  become  his,  and  live  happily 
ever  afterwards,  as  soon  as  the  poor  "legitimate"  had 
shuffled  off.  And — convenient  lady! — she  had  every 
intention  of  shuffling  off  speedily !  .  .  . 

''Another  chance  for  you,  Sallie,"  said  Charlie  Cov- 
ington,  smiling  rather  gravely  as  he  accompanied  her 
to  the  telegraph  office,  where  she  was  to  do  her  writing, 
for  she  was  absolutely  determined  not  to  risk  an  en- 
counter with  Mr.  Green  until  she  had  screwed  up  her 
courage  to  the  sticking  point.  "The  play  was  written 
for  you  to  guy." 

"No,"  she  cried  furiously,  "you  are  mistaken.  I  see 
nothing  to  ridicule.  It  is  simply  disgusting.  It  nau- 
seates me.  You  forget  that  I  am  a  woman." 

She  forgot  the  time,  not  so  very  long  ago,  when  at 
the  close  of  a  performance  certainly  no  less  revolting 
than  this,  he  had  reminded  her  of  the  fact,  as  they 
stood  by  the  owls'  nest,  with  the  electric,  moonlit  City 
Hall  Park  behind  them.  He  did  not  forget  it.  It 
came  upon  him  with  strange  force  and  significance. 
Much  had  happened  since  then,  and  perhaps  he  stood 
beside  her  now  in  a  vastly  different  light.  But  he  re- 
membered. "After  all,"  he  had  said,  "you  are  a  wom- 
an." And  her  words,  in  reply,  came  back  to  him  as 
clearly  as  though  she  now  spoke  them:  "Don't  be  silly, 
Charlie.  You  mean  well,  but  you  really  are  a  dreadful 
Philistine.  Thanks  for  remembering  that  I  am  a 
woman.  I  thought  you  had  forgotten  it  long  ago. 


212  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

However,  I  can't  help  it,  you  know — I  really  can't.  It 
is  not  my  fault.  I  had  nothing  to  say  in  the  matter." 

What  had  happened  to  her?  What  had  caused  this 
shifting  of  the  view-point?  He  felt  a  sense  of  alarm — 
though  he  would  not  admit  it — as  he  heard  her  last  re- 
mark, "You  forget  that  I  am  a  woman."  It  was  so  un- 
like Sallie — so  pathetically  unlike  her.  Weird  incon- 
sistency! There  she  was,  apparently  pulled  up,  resist- 
less, at  his  own  aspect  of  affairs,  uttering  the  very 
words  with  which  he  had  plied  her  on  that  long-ago 
night.  And  now  he  was  alarmed,  and  uneasy,  and 
completely  disconcerted. 

"I  will  do  up  this  play,"  she  said  viciously,  as  he 
prepared  to  leave  her  to  her  task.  "This  man  .  .  .  this 
actor  ...  he  is  not  acting.  He  is  playing  from  his 
own  warped,  distorted  nature.  If  people  admire  this 
sort  of  perversion  on  the  stage,  why  should  it  be  so 
dreadful  in  real  life?  Why  should  we  think  his  real 
story  so  horrible  .  .  ." 

She  interrupted  herself.  She  was  giving  herself 
away.  She  was  an  inexperienced  liar,  and  there  is 
nothing  more  desperately  uncomfortable.  Charlie 
Covington  glanced  at  her  with  a  queer  expression  in 
his  eyes.  If  there  were  any  real  reason  for  suspicion, 
this  was  surely  the  cue  for  its  appearance.  Sallie  was 
lampooning  Stuyvesant  as  though,  in  her  reportorial 
trip,  she  had  proved  him  guilty.  She  had  declared 
that  she  had  done  nothing  of  the  sort.  Still,  she  could 
have  no  possible  'motive  for  attempting  to  shield 
him. 

"His  real  story!"  he  exclaimed,  mystified.  "Why, 
you  said  there  was  no  real  story  .  .  .  that  there  was 
nothing  in  it." 

She  made  a  violent  effort  to  be  plausible  and  consist- 
ent. "His  real  story  is  horrible,"  she  said  in  dreary 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  213 

tones,  "to  Mr.  Green,  and  to  others  who  suspect  it,  be- 
cause, you  see,  I  haven't  told  them  yet  that  this  time 
he  has  been  .  .  .  maligned.  But  the  man  disgusts  me. 
I  feel  ...  I  know  .  .  .  that  he  was  not  acting  to- 
night .  .  ." 

Sallie  wrote  a  heavy  dissertation  on  morality  that 
was  quite  unlike  her  usual  airy  work.  She  was  bitter, 
vindictive,  eager  .  .  .  and  she  did  not  know  that  bit- 
terness, vindictiveness,  and  eagerness  stamp  a  dramatic 
critic  as  hopelessly  banal.  She  excoriated  Arthur 
Stuyvesant,  and  throughout  her  article  she  made  it 
clear  that  she  was  hurling  her  ire  at  the  man,  and  not 
at  the  actor.  Her  "story"  was  logical  and  impressive; 
but  those  who  read  it  felt  that  their  sympathies  were 
wafted  towards  rather  than  away  from  the  man  who 
was  so  vigorously  attacked.  Others  might  success- 
fully indulge  in  this  style  of  critical  demolition,  but  not 
Sallie,  who  had  made  her  mark  in  another  and  a  more 
"popular"  direction.  She  wrote  for  Stuyvesant  .  .  . 
she  wrote  for  Ivy  .  .  .  she  wrote  for  her  own  innate 
satisfaction  .  .  .  but  she  did  not  write  for  the  public. 
She  did  the  thing  that  has  wrecked  many  a  critic,  and 
appealed  to  the  few  rather  than  to  the  many.  Her 
article  would  be  a  scourge  to  a  feeble  score  who  knew 
the  man,  and  despised  him,  but  to  five  hundred  thou- 
sand readers  it  would  make  no  appeal  other  than  that 
of  weariness  and  ponderous  cruelty. 

Jack  Childers  read  the  proof  in  dismay.  Then  he 
read  it  again  in  more  dismay.  "What  on  earth  can 
have  happened  to  Sallie  ?"  he  asked  of  little  Miss  Pop- 
lets,  who  liked  the  girl  because  she  was  popular  with 
her  lord  and  master.  "Read  this.  It  might  have  been 
written  by  old  Billy  Summer.  It  is  amazing." 

Little  Miss  Poplets  read  the  proof,  and  even  to  her 
mind,  which  was  but  a  reflection  of  Jack  Childers', 


214  A  Girl  wh0  Wrote 

Miss  Sydenham's  work  seemed  odd,  and  direly  pur- 
poseful. 

"I  must  talk  to  the  girl,"  said  Jack,  as  he  took  the 
proof  from  Miss  Poplets  and  stared  at  it  frowningly. 
"It  might  be  old  Parkhurst — if  he  had  Sallie's  flow  of 
language  at  his  command.  I  had  no  idea  she  could 
write  like  this.  She  has  been  getting  rather  serious  of 
late.  Perhaps  some  of  the  fools  in  the  office  have  been 
talking  to  her  and  she  has  got  it  into  her  head  that  she 
isn't  womanly.  Confound  them !  It  would  be  a  great 
loss  to  the  paper  if  Miss  Sydenham  changed  her  tactics. 
Positively  she  has  never  seemed  duller  than  during  the 
last  week.  But  this  caps  it  all.  Why,  such  a  play,  a 
few  months  ago,  would  have  been  hailed  by  her  as 
the  very  thing  for  which  she  waits.  All  she  has  done 
to-night  is  to  attack  Stuyvesant  in  a  manner  that  is  al- 
most libellous ;  to  preach  morality,  as  though  she  were 
Anastasia  Atwood,  and  to  label  herself  as  a  prig.  I 
feel  quite  upset  about  it  ...  really  I  do,  Miss  Pop- 
lets." 

"Perhaps  she  has  the  blues,"  opined  the  little  type- 
writer girl. 

"She's  been  working  on  this  silly  case  of  Stuyvesant 
and  his  wife,"  declared  Mr.  Childers,  savagely,  "and 
that's  what's  done  it.  A  critic — especially  a  girl  like 
Miss  Sydenham — must  be  left  to  her  own  particular 
affairs,  and  not  tacked  to  a  reportorial  job.  Green  is 
an  old  fool,  and  I  shall  tell  him  so.  I  don't  know  what 
he  was  thinking  of.  I  .  .  ." 

"But,"  interposed  little  Miss  Poplets,  meekly,  for  she 
was  too  fond  of  Jack  to  allow  him  to  glance  in  the 
wrong  direction,  "you  will  remember,  Mr.  Childers, 
that  Mr.  Green  came  in  here,  and  asked  for  your  per- 
mission to  assign  Miss  Sydenham  to  the  case.  He 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  215 

said  that  he  couldn't  do  it  on  his  own  responsibility. 
And  you  .  .  .  you  gave  him  the  permission.  .  .  ." 

Jack  Childers  grunted  and  looked  uncomfortable. 
Little  Miss  Poplets  was  right.  He  distinctly  remem- 
bered having  told  Mr.  Green  to  humor  Sallie,  and  to 
give  her  this  reportorial  job,  if  she  particularly  desired 
it.  He  was  anxious  to  please  her.  He  had  made  a 
mistake,  and  henceforth  Sallie  Sydenham  should  be 
kept  to  dramatic  criticism.  The  paper  could  not  af- 
ford to  run  the  risk  of  losing  her  humor,  her  bright- 
ness, her  pungency  .  .  . 

Charlie  Covington  read  the  article  next  morning  in 
abject  bewilderment.  Had  it  not  been  for  Sallie's  sig- 
nature at  its  close  nothing  on  earth  could  ever  have  in- 
duced him  to  believe  that  she  had  written  it.  It  was 
impressive,  good  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  inter- 
esting (for  to  Charlie  Covington  nearly  all  that  was 
heavy,  was  interesting),  but  it  was  cruel,  biting,  and 
dangerous.  He  sat  and  wondered,  in  his  chair  at  the 
window  of  his  club.  Something  was  happening  to 
Sallie,  and  he  had  no  idea  what  it  was.  He  could  not 
be  insane  enough  to  imagine  that  the  little  episode  in 
which  he  had  figured  with  her,  could  have  affected  her. 
He  knew  that  a  girl  suddenly  confronted  with  the 
woman-thoughts  that  hover  around  a  "proposal"  is 
sometimes  strangely  altered.  Poor  Charlie !  He  hated 
to  admit  it,  but  he  was  bound  to  confess  that  his  "af- 
fair" with  Sallie  could  not  possibly  have  resulted  in 
anything  very  forceful.  She  had  probably  forgotten 
all  about  it  an  hour  afterwards. 

"Of  course  it  would  be  better,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"if  she  really  did  get  more  serious,  and  really  wrote 
from  the  woman's  point  of  view.  But  this  article  is 
not  the  woman's  point  of  view.  It  is  the  devil's." 


2i 6  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

And  he  knew  that,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  he  would 
feel  sorry  if  he  saw  Sallie  change.  He  realized  that 
her  seeming  ribaldry  of  expression,  her  recklessness, 
her  abandon  of  style,  which  he  had  always  thought 
that  he  despised,  were  in  reality  good,  useful  things  in 
their  way.  They  diu  not  appeal  to  prudes ;  but  Sallie 
wrote  of  plays  that  prudes  do  not  go  to  see.  In  any 
case  her  most  uproarious  contribution,  her  most  sweep- 
ing gust  of  levity,  her  most  hopelessly  flippant  and 
frivolous  arraignment,  was  better  than  his  .  .  .  this 
gloomy,  pessimistic,  hate-riddled  thing  that  seemed  to 
smear  his  mind  with  black  suggestions.  .  .  . 

All  Sallie's  readers  marvelled.  Her  friends  were 
aghast,  her  enemies  foresaw  her  downfall.  But  she 
read  her  own  article  and  thought  it  the  best  thing  she 
had  ever  written,  for  the  two  people  to  whom  it  was 
addressed,  would  writhe  and  squirm,  at  its  damning 
insinuations.  . 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

ALLIE  awoke  with  a  start.  She  had  an  un- 
comfortable feeling  that  somebody  was 
standing  by  her  bedside  looking  at  her.  The 
room  was  still  dark,  although  it  was  eleven 
o'clock.  Even  in  the  radiance  of  the  sun  the  "all-light 
rooms"  of  Sallie's  small  apartment  were  usually  all 
dark.  But  it  was  a  gloomy,  foggy  day;  she  could 
hear  the  rain  splashing  through  that  apology  for  a 
window  known  in  New  York  as  an  air-shaft,  and  her 
bedroom  was  blacker  than  usual.  At  first,  as  she 
opened  her  eyes  sleepily,  pushing  aside  a  fantastic 
dream,  from  which  she  was  glad  enough  to  escape, 
she  thought  that  it  was  Rosina  come  to  tell  her  that 
breakfast  was  ready. 

"Sallie !"  cried  a  young  voice  that  was  not  Rosina's. 
"Wake  up,  Lazybones.  I've  been  most  patient,  but  I 
simply  can't  wait  any  longer." 

Sallie  rubbed  her  eyes,  but  could  scarcely  believe 
what  they  told  her.  Before  her  stood  Lettie  Syden- 
ham,  her  sister,  of  whose  departure  from  Chicago  she 
had  known  nothing.  She  was  not  dreaming,  although 
the  fantastic  imaginings  of  the  night  had  been  less 
amazing  than  this.  She  hopped  out  of  bed,  and  threw 
her  arms  around  the  girl,  overjoyed,  astonished,  but 
quite  certain  now  that  there  was  no  deception. 

"What  does  it  mean,  Lettie?"  she  exclaimed,  trail- 
ing away  in  her  night-gown,  and  surveying  the  appa- 
rition from  the  four  points  of  the  compass.  "You 
never  wrote  me.  I — I  had  no  idea  that  you  contem- 
plated coming  to  New  York.  How  did  you  get  here  ? 
Why?  When?  .  .  ." 


2i 8  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Lettie  Sydenham  was  amused.  She  was  taller  and 
thinner  than  her  sister,  and  she  looked  rather  poor  in 
her  commonplace  Chicago  outfit.  But  to  Sallie  she 
was  an  angel  of  light,  the  one  domestic  tie  that  influ- 
enced her  life,  the  stimulus  for  most  that  she  did. 
Lettie  was  surveying  the  room,  with  no  very  ardent 
appreciation  in  her  eyes.  She  had  already  dubbed  it  a 
"poky  hole."  Somehow  or  other,  she  expected  to  see 
her  famous  sister,  of  whom  Chicago  spoke,  and  whose 
name  figured  frequently  in  the  journals  of  that  city,  in 
a  costly  "suite,"  with  flunkeys  and  maids  and  all  the 
appurtenances  of  that  Bohemianism  which  the  rising 
generation  has  fitted  up  with  "modern  improvements." 
The  sinister  gloom  of  her  sister's  surroundings  damp- 
ened her  enthusiasm.  But  her  affection  for  Sallie  was 
deep  and  abiding,  and  her  voice  grew  fresh  in  its  glad- 
ness. 

"Dress,  and  I'll  tell  you  all,"  she  said.  "I'll  leave 
you  while  you  adorn  yourself.  I  have  already  intro- 
duced myself  to  your  cook." 

"My  maid,  please,"  retorted  Sallie,  demurely. 
"How  dare  you  call  her  a  cook  ?  Rosina  is  my  colored 
maid — very  swell  and  stylish." 

She  threw  on  her  clothes,  in  blissful  forgetfulness 
of  the  trials  that  Lettie's  advent  had  interrupted.  She 
"touched  up"  her  cheeks  with  the  invariable  carmine, 
arranged  her  hair  in  a  style  that  was  a  compromise  be- 
tween Psyche  and  Twenty-third  Street,  with  a  leaning 
towards  the  thoroughfare,  and  rushed  into  the  parlor, 
where  Rosina  had  prepared  breakfast.  The  hand- 
maiden was  delighted  at  the  arrival,  as  the  loneliness 
of  Miss  Sydenham's  life,  forever  unrelieved,  had  be- 
gun to  impress  her  as  little  less  than  grewsome. 

"Now  let  me  look  at  you,  old  lady,"  she  said,  turning 
Lettie  towards  the  window  and  scanning  her  with 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  219 

critical  eyes.  She  was  rather  soberly  impressed  with 
what  she  saw.  Her  sister  looked  ill,  and  she  had 
grown  alarmingly  thin.  Her  complexion  had  an  un- 
healthy tint,  and  there  was  a  listlessness  in  her  manner 
that  even  the  temporary  excitement  of  the  meeting 
could  not  successfully  dissipate.  Sallie  sat  down  and 
waited,  busying  herself  with  pouring  out  the  coffee  in 
order  to  collect  herself. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  said  Lettie,  quietly,  "you've 
guessed  it,  I  can  see.  I've  come  to  you  in  New  York 
because  it  is  no  use  my  remaining  in  Chicago.  Valerie 
tells  me  that  my  voice  has  gone.  My  chest  is  not 
strong — oh,  there  is  nothing  to  be  at  all  alarmed  about 
— but  as  a  possible  vocal  phenomenon  my  chances  are 
nil.  So  I  thought  I'd  surprise  you,  and  I  think  I  have 
done  it.  Henceforth,  I'm  going  to  live  with  you,  and 
be  your  love." 

In  the  genuine  joy  that  this  announcement  gave  her, 
Sallie  forgot  the  sinister  menace  of  ill  health.  Be- 
sides, a  mere  menace  was  not  particularly  awe-inspir- 
ing, and  it  counted  for  little  beside  the  prospect  of  con- 
stant association  with  this  cherished  girl,  who  would 
give  to  her  dreary  six  rooms  something  of  the  unre- 
membered  aspect  of  home. 

"It  is  quite  too  lovely,"  exclaimed  Sallie,  joyously. 
"It  is  too  good  to  be  true.  Of  course,  I'm  dreadfully 
sorry  about  your  voice,  dear,  because  I  know  you  hoped 
so  much  from  it.  But  we'll  have  such  jolly  good  times 
together,  and — and  I  was  just  beginning  to  get  desper- 
ate all  by  myself.  I'm  so  awfully  lonely,  Lettie — al- 
most like  a  hermit." 

Lettie  Sydenham  looked  extremely  surprised,  for 
she  had  contemplated  something  very  different.  She 
had  expected  to  pass  through  crowds  in  order  to  reach 
Sallie.  She  had  imagined  eager  actresses,  ambitious 


220  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

actors,  cringing  managers,  and  luminous  playwrights, 
all  surrounding  Sallie,  as  she  sat  in  state,  in  a  sumptu- 
ous apartment,  dealing  out  favors.  This  was  indeed  a 
revelation.  Her  disappointment  was  unmistakable. 
She  had  taken  her  sister  unawares,  to  find  her  in  a  dis- 
mal little  "flat,"  badly  lighted,  sparsely  furnished,  with 
a  solitary  attendant,  and  nobody — positively  nobody — 
waiting  to  see  her. 

"I  thought,"  she  said — and  she  could  not  conceal  her 
depression,  "I  thought  you  had  such  a  lively  time  of  it, 
Sallie.  I  even  imagined  I  should  have  to  make  an  ap- 
pointment with  you.  I  thought  you  would  have 
to  disarrange  a  breakfast,  or  a  luncheon,  and  that 
— you  never  told  me,  Sallie,  that  you — that  you  lived 
like  this.  In  Chicago  they  think  that  you  are  positive- 
ly rich — and — and  never  alone." 

The  note  of  disillusion  in  Lettie's  voice  was  unde- 
niable, but  it  did  not  annoy  Sallie.  She  could  not  be- 
lieve that  the  girl  would  have  been  glad  to  find  her  liv- 
ing in  a  tumult  that  would  have  rendered  their  com- 
radeship less  strenuous. 

"You  must  feel  like  Pauline  in  'The  Lady  of 
Lyons,'  "  she  said  lightly.  "I'm  not  very  elaborately 
situated,  old  girl,  and  I  may  as  well  tell  you  that  I'm 
generally  hard  up.  I'm  hard  up  now.  And  as  for 
society  functions,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  I  go  no- 
where, and  see  nobody.  When  I'm  not  working,  I  sim- 
ply burrow.  But  now  you've  come,  I  sha'n't  do  it  any 
more.  I  shall  have  something  to  live  for." 

Lettie  grew  even  more  oppressed.  "You  have  been 
sending  me  such  a  lot  of  money,  too,"  she  said  rather 
ruefully.  "But,  of  course,  I  sha'n't  sing  any  more, 
and  I  don't  want  to  be  idle.  I  thought  if  I  came  on 
here  that — although  it  would  not  be  necessary — 
I  should  like  to  do  newspaper  work.  Perhaps  I  could 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  221 

make  a  hit  as  you  have  done.  And  I  suppose  that  a 
word  from  you  would  be  enough  to  get  me  a  position 
on  the  paper." 

"No,"  said  Sallie  quickly,  "that  is  quite  impossible, 
Lettie.  I  don't  say  that  I  couldn't  get  you  on  the 
paper.  But  I  do  say  that  I  sha'n't.  One  in  a  family 
is  enough,  and  I  should  hate  to  think  of  you  going 
through  what  we  all  go  through.  I'm  not  talking  of 
my  own  position,  which  is  a  pleasant  one,  but  I  simply 
couldn't  let  you  undertake  the  horrid  work  that  most 
newspaper  women  do.  You  see  I  know  it  all,  and  have 
gone  through  the  mill.  Anything — rather  than  jour- 
nalism, Lettie.  But  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  you 
to  do  anything.  I  make  quite  enough  money,  and,  my 
dear,  you  don't  know  how  utterly  charmed  I  am  to 
think  that  you've  come  to  me — and  in  the  nick  of  time 
too,  just  as  I  was  beginning  to  loathe  it  all." 

The  younger  Miss  Sydenham  did  not  appear  to 
share  her  sister's  sentiments.  Certain  roseate  visions 
had  haunted  her,  in  connection  with  journalism,  and 
her  arrival  in  New  York  had  been  joyously  anticipated. 
She  had  abandoned  her  vocal  aspirations  without  a 
tremor,  and  had  looked  forward  jubilantly  to  metro- 
politan possibilities. 

"I  should  like  to  meet  people,  Sallie,"  she  said  de- 
jectedly. "You  must  meet  charming  men  in  news- 
paper offices,  and — between  sisters  there  need  be  no 
restraint — if  I  met  somebody  I  liked,  I  should  be  so 
glad.  I  have  a  horror  of  being  an  old  maid,  and  want 
to  get  married.  Doesn't  it  sound  cold-blooded?  But 
it  is  true.  I  don't  want  to  be  dependent  on  you. 
Even  if  you  were  rich,  it  would  not  be  fair.  Don't  you 
know  people?" 

"Oh,  my  poor  old  girl,"  said  Sallie,  sympathetically, 
"you  really  are  quite  mistaken.  The  men  in  news- 


222  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

paper  offices  are  simply  machines — at  least  most  of 
them  are.  They  are  nearly  all  married.  They  marry 
at  a  most  ungodly  age,  because  they  have  nothing  else 
to  do.  They  tie  themselves  down  before  they  realize 
that  they  are  alive,  and  journalism  is  glad  because  it 
keeps  them  at  it.  Their  wives  live  like  widows,  and 
their  homes  would  not  appeal  to  you  at  all.  I  know  so 
many  of  these  people,  and  .  .  ." 

"I  might  like  them,"  cried  Lettie,  rebelliously,  "even 
if  you  don't.  Besides  the  freedom  of  association  must 
be  very  fascinating.  After  all,  they  are  educated  men, 
and — and — I  should  just  like  a  year  or  so  in  a  news- 
paper office.  Anyway,  though  you  talk  as  you  do,  I 
bet  you  have  a  good  time,  Sallie.  I  can't  see  you  stag- 
nating quite  as  much  as  you  would  like  me  to  believe. 
Have  you  never  had  a  chance  to  marry?" 

Sallie  flushed  to  the  roots  of  her  hair.  She  hated 
this  conversation,  and  began  to  feel  indignant  with 
Lettie  for  having  begun  it.  Surely  these  were  tabooed 
subjects,  and  it  was  not  quite  "nice"  for  a  girl  to  say, 
without  provocation  and  with  nobody  in  mind,  that 
she  wished  to  marry.  She  thought  of  plays  and  novels 
in  which  the  heroines  generally  fainted  at  the  mere  idea 
of  matrimony.  And  yet  here  was  a  girl  who  calmly 
asked  to  be  cast  among  men,  in  the  far-fetched  hope 
that  she  might  "meet  her  fate." 

"Yes,  the  other  day  somebody  clamored  for  my 
hand  and  heart,"  she  replied  lightly. 

"And  you  replied?"  Lettie  Sydenham's  voice  was 
shrill  with  surprise.  She  looked  at  this  apartment,  to 
the  'pettiness  of  which  she  could  not  accustom  herself, 
and  it  was  hard  for  her  to  realize  that  Sallie  had  been 
apparently  unwilling  to  give  it  up. 

"I  refused,"  replied  Sallie.  Then  she  went  on, 
rather  warmly.  "See  here,  Lettie,  I  don't  like  this  kind 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  223 

of  dialogue  at  all.  It  is  most  unpleasant.  I  don't  say 
that  I  haven't  declared  at  various  times,  that  if  I  could 
find  a  man  foolish  enough  to  pay  my  rent  I  would  glad- 
ly let  him  do  it.  I  certainly  despise  earning  my  own 
living.  I  think  it  is  something  that  a  woman  ought 
not  to  do.  But  I  wouldn't  marry  a  man  I  didn't  care 
for — in  that  way — just  for  the  sake  of  marrying  him. 
So  I  refused." 

"I  am  interested,"  cried  Lettie,  jumping  up. 
"You've  been  concealing  things  from  me.  I  suppose 
you  refused  one  because  you  were  fond  of  another. 
Own  up,  Sallie.  Ah,  I  knew  I  was  right." 

She  saw  the  expression  of  her  sister's  face  change, 
and  she  was  determined  to  probe  this  matter.  She 
had  no  strain  of  sentiment  in  her  nature,  and  would 
probably,  as  a  "prima  donna,"  have  been  "wedded  to 
her  art."  But  that  dream  was  all  over. 

Sallie  made  her  confession  quietly.  "Yes,"  she  said, 
"there  is— or  there  might  have  been — somebody  else. 
But  he  is  engaged,  and  so — oh,  Lettie,  you  make  me 
say  these  things,  and  I've  never  put  them  into  words 
before.  I  refused  Mr.  Covington,  of  whom  I  have 
often  written  to  you,  because  of  the  other.  That  is  all. 
Won't  you  change  the  subject,  dear?  Your  trunks — 
have  they  arrived?  Would  you  like  to  go  to  a  mati- 
nee?" 

"And  yet — and  yet — "  Lettie  spoke  solemnly,  hardly 
hearing  her  sister's  questions,  "you  tell  me  you  stag- 
nate? Why,  it  is  a  regular  romance.  You  love  one 
man,  who  can  never  be  yours,  and  you  refuse  the  other 
and  will  never  be  his.  Yet  they  are  all  a  set  of  hope- 
lessly married  men,  and  their  wives  are  widows  .  .  . 
and  their  homes  wouldn't  appeal  to  me  ...  and  you 
wouldn't  let  me  undertake  the  horrid  work  that  news- 
paper women  do  ...  I  think  you  are  really  selfish, 
Sallie,  though  .  .  ." 


224  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

She  thought  of  her  long  musical  studies  in  Chicago, 
all  paid  for  by  the  girl  whom  she  was  now  torturing. 
She  remembered  the  many  gifts  that  had  been  show- 
ered upon  her.  Whenever  she  had  been  in  difficulties 
— a  note  to  Sallie,  and  they  had  all  vanished.  She  had 
never  even  worried  about  the  drain  these  constant  de- 
mands must  have  been  upon  her  sister.  She  had  pro- 
fessed gratitude,  and  humility,  in  her  letters.  That 
was  all.  But  now  she  was  accusing  her  benefactress 
of  selfishness.  Her  heart  smote  her  a  little.  .  .  . 

"Of  course,  I  don't  mean  that  you  are  really  selfish, 
dear,"  she  went  on.  "I  should  be  the  very  last  to  say 
that.  But  you  admit  that  all  these  charming  things 
have  happened  to  you  in  journalism,  and  you  won't 
help  me  to  get  there.  I  could  be  musical  critic — or 
something  of  that  sort — and  I  know  I  should  get  along 
well.  But,  principally,  I  should  meet  people.  It  is  so 
trying — not  to  do  so." 

"You  shall  meet  people,  if  you're  good,  and  stay 
quietly  with  me,"  said  Sallie,  soothingly,  although  Let- 
tie's  words  hurt  and  stung  her.  "I'll  see  that  we  do 
not  stagnate.  But  I  shall  not  introduce  you  into  a 
newspaper  office.  It  is  all  very  well  for  girls  like  me, 
who  understand  it.  But  it  would  be  very  ill  for  girls 
like  you,  who  don't." 

Rosina  came  in  and  removed  the  breakfast  things. 
She  had  heard  every  word  of  the  conversation,  and 
her  good  opinion  of  Miss  Lettie  Sydenham  had  van- 
ished. She  did  not  like  to  hear  her  young  mistress 
"moithered,"  and  she  could  not  sympathize  with  such 
an  unmaidenly  confession  as  that  just  uttered  by  the 
younger  Miss  Sydenham.  Even  a  "colored  girl" 
would  blush  (if  possible)  at  the  suggestion  that  she 
was  really  anxious  to  wed  for  the  sake  of  wedding. 

After  breakfast,  Lettie  studied  her  sister  carefully. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  225 

She  had  been  so  full  of  her  own  schemes  and  anticipa- 
tions that  she  had  scarcely  noticed  her  sister.  Now 
she  observed,  for  the  first  time,  that  Sallie  looked  worn, 
and  she  saw  the  thick  inroads  of  rouge,  and  the  hair 
that  was  yellower  than  she  had  ever  remarked  it  before. 
Certainly  Sallie  looked  showy,  and  garish,  and  not  at 
all  pretty. 

"Between  sisters  there  need  be  no  restraint,"  she 
said  again — it  was  her  favorite  way  of  uttering  un- 
pleasant things,  "so  I  sha'n't  apologize  for  asking  you 
this  question,  Sallie.  Why  do  you  paint  and  dye  .  .  . 
so  badly?" 

Sallie's  good  spirits  were  returning,  for  she  could 
not  remember  Lettie's  foolish  remarks,  and,  even  in 
spite  of  them,  it  was  delightful  to  see  her  there  in  the 
flesh,  and  to  realize  that  the  thousand-mile  barrier  had 
been  removed.  Lettie  was  simply  a  silly  girl,  and 
nothing  more.  She  had  Whittingtonian  ideas  of  New 
York,  and  like  most  young  women,  when  they  ap- 
proach a  metropolis,  her  thoughts  had  flown  to  the  par- 
donable theme  of  marriage ;  only  most  young  women 
do  not  express  their  thoughts. 

"Why  do  I  paint  and  dye  so  badly?"  she  repeated, 
and  she  took  Lettie  by  the  shoulders  and  pushed  her 
into  a  chair.  "Listen,  you  silly  old  thing,  and  I'll  tell 
you  the  story  of  my  past.  Once  upon  a  time  there  was 
a  girl  named  Sarah — horrid  name — and  she  was  teach- 
ing terrible  children  unnecessary  things.  She  was 
very  good,  and  wishy-washy,  and  drab,  and  respect- 
able, but  she  hated  teaching.  And  she  met  a  young 
man  named  Covington  who  said  to  her,  'I'll  get  you 
into  a  newspaper  office.'  Sarah  was  rejoiced,  and 
Sarah  swore  to  herself  that  she  would  make  a  hit,  or 
die.  She  knew,  the  first  day,  that  she  was  thrown 
among  men,  and  she  also  knew,  that  first  day,  that 


226  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

there  were  other  women.  They  were  ugly  and  stupid, 
and  dull,  and  frumpy,  and  disagreeable,  and  the  men 
hated  them." 

"How  do  you  know?"  asked  Lettie. 

"So,"  resumed  Sallie,  "Sarah  made  up  her  mind  to 
be  different.  It  occurred  to  her — for  she  was  no  fool, 
that  these  poor  hard-worked  persons  would  appreciate 
something  feminine  that  was  jolly  and  good-natured. 
Besides  it  would  not  be  exactly  a  pose,  for  Sarah  was 
never  very  fond  of  the  conventional,  and  was  a  Bohe- 
mian at  heart.  So  she  entered  upon  her  task.  She 
made  herself  look  lively — perhaps  a  little  too  lively, 
for  she  was  never  famous  for  good  taste.  She  knew 
no  more  about  clothes  than  she  did  about  astronomy. 
She  did  the  best  she  could  with  limited  means,  and 
added  rouge  and  peroxide  to  her  toilette  accessories. 
Poor  Sarah !  There  came  a  time  when  she  began  to 
see  that  she  was  misunderstood.  It  grieved  her  at  first, 
and  then  she  flared  up,  and  swore  to  herself  that  she 
would  do  what  she  had  set  out  to  do.  And  it  soon  be- 
came apparent  that  the  more  reckless  she  was  in  every 
way,  the  more  completely  she  succeeded." 

"But,  my  dear,"  interposed  Lettie,  "please  remember 
that  you  were  always  inclined  a  little  in  that  direction. 
Between  sisters  there  need  be  no  restraint — but  you 
forget,  Sallie,  that  you  were  expelled  from  school,  and 
that — er — you  always  played  with  boys,  and  never  with 
girls.  Surely — " 

Sallie  waved  her  aside  tranquilly.  "Don't  interrupt 
the  story  of  Sarah's  life,  and  please  remember  that  she 
is  not  trying  to  whitewash  herself,  or  to  pretend  that 
her  conduct  was  all  a  pose,  and  that  it  was  very  diffi- 
cult. It  was  easy  to  be  herself,  but  it  was  not  so  easy, 
when  she  saw  how  thoroughly  she  conflicted  with 
recognized  behavior.  But  Sarah  persisted.  At  first 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  227 

she  wrote  cautiously,  and  rather  worthily.  Then  she 
saw  how  all  the  men  in  the  office  laughed  at  her  spoken 
comments  on  plays.  Sarah  said  to  herself,  'If  they 
laugh  so,  when  I  speak,  wouldn't  they  consider  me 
equally  funny  if  I  wrote?'  She  tried  it,  and  it  was 
most  successful.  Without  wishing  to  throw  bouquets 
at  herself,  Sarah  realized  that  she  had  veritably 
founded  a  new  school  of  criticism.  Everybody  began 
to  try  imitating  her,  but  nobody  could  do  it.  She  grew 
bolder  and  bolder,  and  became  genuinely  entertained 
by  her  own  brilliancy.  She  was  not  precisely  shock- 
ing, but  she  trembled  on  the  verge.  She  was  no  longer 
Sarah.  Sallie  sprouted.  And  Sallie  became  a  power- 
ful person,  and  talked  like  a  boy  to  boys,  and  when 
very  evil  plays  were  produced  she  discussed  them 
openly  with  the  men  in  the  office,  and  they  liked  it. 
And  Sallie  came  to  no  harm.  She  is  still  unspoiled — 
extremely  vestal — and — er — vestal  she  will  probably 
remain  to  the  end  of  the  game,  even  if  she  has  to 
swear,  for  the  sake  of  her  profitable  reputation,  that 
she  has  been  led  to  her  ruin,  and  has  loved,  not  wisely, 
but  too  well." 

"Sallie,  you  are  really  horrid' — disgusting,"  cried 
Lettie,  primly.  "If  you  talk  like  that  to  men  .  .  .  well 
really  .  .  ." 

Sallie  kissed  her  and  laughed.  "Oh,  I  talk  ...  I 
talk,"  she  exclaimed,  "and  that  is  all.  You  want  to 
enter  a  newspaper  office,  you  silly  child,  to  fall  in  .love 
with  some  poverty-stricken  reporter  or  impertinent 
editor.  You  admit  it.  I  don't.  I  don't  admire  them, 
and  have  not  the  slightest  interest  in  them.  I  amuse 
them,  and  laugh  with  them,  because  it  seems  to  be  the 
most  sensible  thing  to  do.  They  look  upon  me  as  a 
jolly  good  fellow— one  of  the  boys — and  the  novelty  of 
the  thing  goes." 


228  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"And  he,"  asked  Lettie,  curiously,  "he  who  is  en- 
gaged to  another  ?  What  of  him  ?" 

She  felt  that  this  was  coming.  Lettie  could  certain- 
ly not  be  accused  of  a  repressive  sense  of  delicacy. 
"Oh,"  she  replied ;  but  it  was  not  as  easy  to  talk  lightly, 
"he  also  regards  me  as  one  of  the  boys.  He  told  me 
so.  He  looks  upon  me  as  a  comrade,  and  we  are  good 
friends  and  devoted  comrades,  and — all  that." 

"I  should  say,"  remarked  Lettie,  reflectively,  "that 
in  his  case  you  were  hoist  by  your  own  petard." 

"Don't,  Lettie,"  she  implored.  "Don't,  my  dear.  I 
regret  nothing.  That  friendship  has  been  too  charm- 
ing for  regrets.  And  I  bless  the  plan  that  I  adopted 
and  carried  out,  because  it  gave  me  that  friendship.  I 
should  never  have  had  it  if  I  had  been  a  frumpish  con- 
ventionality. I  should  have  had  nothing  at  all.  So  I 
have  nothing  to  complain  about — except  fate,  and  .  .  . 
one  or  two  other  things.  And  those  other  things  .  .  ." 

But  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  discuss  them  with 
Lettie.  She  was  dimly  aware  that  though  the  antici- 
pated association  with  her  sister  would  be  charming, 
it  would  not  be  sympathetic.  She  could  not  tell  her 
about  the  "complication"  in  which  she  was  involved, 
and  which  now  threatened  her  peace  of  mind  so  seri- 
ously. And  yet  she  was  sorely  tempted  to  disclose  the 
mysteries  of  the  drama  in  which  Jack  Childers,  Ivy 
Hampton,  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  and  she,  herself,  played 
leading  parts.  It  would  be  such  a  relief  to  talk  it  over 
— just  to  talk,  and  talk — for  the  sake  of  talking.  The 
silence  corroded  her.  It  was  poison  to  her.  But  her 
sister  would  not  understand,  and  she  hated  that  word 
"Quixotic."  She  knew  that  Lettie  would  call  her 
"Quixotic."  It  was  the  adjective  by  which  gray  con- 
ventionality inevitably  hailed  the  unintelligible  hues  of 
unconventionality.  Everybody  who  did  anything  un- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  229 

necessarily  "nice" — who  was  not  paid  in  dollars  and 
cents  for  "niceness"  measured  by  the  yard — was 
"Quixotic." 

Lettie  decided  to  drop  all  allusions  to  her  plans,  for 
the  present,  at  any  rate.  She  knew  her  sister,  or  fan- 
cied that  she  did.  In  her  selfish  little  heart  she  was 
aware  that  to  gain  any  purpose  all  she  had  to  do  was 
to  mope,  to  be  pensive,  to  seem  ill,  and  to  look  miser- 
able. Sallie  could  never  resist  these  little  subterfuges. 
She  had  indulged  in  them  when  they  were  both  chil- 
dren. By  their  means,  Sallie  gave  up  her  dolls,  her 
books,  all  her  treasures.  One  look  at  Lettie's  "peaked" 
face  and  the  elder  sister  was  conquered. 

She  found  the  apartment  even  "grubbier"  than  she 
had  at  first  supposed.  What  a  parody,  for  a  woman 
who  was  known  and  talked  about,  to  live  like  this  .  .  . 
to  dine  in  a  room  in  which  you  could  scarcely  "swing 
a  cat"  ...  to  sleep  in  a  substitute  for  the  "Black  Hole 
of  Calcutta"  .  .  .  and  to  suffer  it  all  without  friends 
or  gossip-mongers  !  Lettie  vowed  she  would  know  the 
"nine  refined  families"  in  the  house  before  she  had 
been  there  a  week.  She  would  ferret  out  their  his- 
tories, and  make  them  trot  out  brothers,  and  cousins 
and  eligible  belongings.  She  would  oust  Sallie  from  her 
solitude,  and  fill  the  stuffy  rooms  with  people.  And 
she  made  a  mental  note,  underlined  twice,  of  Charlie 
Covington.  He  had  "proposed"  to  Sallie,  and  she  had 
refused  him.  What  about  Sallie's  sister?  Lettie  be- 
lieved in  the  principle  of  "t'other  dear  charmer." 

There  were  certainly  prospects.  She  was  not  in- 
clined to  regard  her  weak  chest  and  her  abandoned 
vocal  aspirations  as  undiluted  misfortunes  after  all. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

ROCRASTINATION  had  at  last  ceased  to 
be  possible,  and  Sallie  Sydenham  knew  that 
the  time  had  come  when  she  must  seek  out 
Mr.  Green,  the  night  city  editor,  and  report 
to  him  the  non-success  of  her  assignment.  Further 
delay  was  quite  out  of  the  question ;  and,  indeed,  Sallie 
marvelled  at  the  silence  that  enveloped  her  strange 
quest.  Ignorant  as  she  was  of  the  relentless  mill  that 
grinds  out  news,  and  pulverizes  the  possibilities,  it 
never  occurred  to  her  that  this  silence  was  ominous. 
She  had  no  knowledge  of  the  wonderful  arteries 
through  which  the  life  blood  of  metropolitan  journal- 
ism rushes,  in  the  pride  of  its  myriad  scarlet  corpus- 
cles. She  looked  upon  it  as  a  little  game,  in  which  she 
might  successfully  hoodwink  a  force  as  irresistible  as 
that  of  Niagara. 

All  that  she  had  to  do,  she  told  herself,  was  to  go 
down  to  the  office  and  inform  Mr.  Green  that  she  had 
worked  up  the  story  and  that  there  was  "nothing  in  it." 
That  would  end  it.  What  further  could  be  said? 
Sallie,  in  her  new  mendacity,  artlessly  believed  that  she 
was  splendidly  rusee.  She  intended  to  act  her  part 
realistically,  and  to  gloomily  deplore  the  failure  of  her 
mission.  She  recalled  an  episode  that  had  occurred 
when  she  was  new  to  journalism.  It  had  greatly  im- 
pressed her.  One  of  the  reporters  had  been  sent  to 
a  New  Jersey  hamlet  to  investigate  a  "story"  that  had 
mysteriously  "blown  in"  to  the  office.  The  report  was 
that  the  body  of  a  certain  wealthy  woman  had  been 
found  hideously  mutilated.  The  reporter  spent  a  day 
investigating,  and  returned  with  tears  in  his  eyes. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  231 

"There's  nothing  in  it,  Mr.  Green,"  Sallie  remem- 
bered hearing  him  say.  "After  all  this  work,  I  found 
out  that  the  woman  was  actually  alive.  I  insisted  that 
she  was  dead  and  mutilated,  but  later  on,  when  I  saw 
her  walking  around,  I  was  obliged  to  believe  trie  evi- 
dence of  my  own  eyes." 

He  had  been  seriously  grieved.  He  had  -even  felt 
indignant  with  the  wealthy  lady,  for  daring  to  be 
alive  and  intact.  He  had  eagerly  anticipated  a  blithely 
illuminative  "story"  of  her  cruel  dissection,  and  had 
even  contemplated  sketching  the  pieces.  Poor  little 
owl!  Sallie  had  tried  to  put  herself  in  his  place,  and 
feel  sorry  for  him.  But  she  was  too  new  to  journal- 
ism, and  had  not  yet  reached  the  point  where  she  could 
callously  consider  the  mincing-up  of  humanity  in  the 
light  of  "copy." 

And  on  another  occasion  she  had  heard  an  owl 
screech  in  agony  to  the  moon  as  news  of  a  dynamite  ex- 
plosion with  a  loss  of  sixty  lives  had  been  telephoned 
to  the  office.  "Hang  it  all !"  the  owl  had  cried,  "I  had 
a  dinner  on  to-night,  and  now  I  can't  go.  I  hate  these 
holocausts,  and  they  always  occur  at  such  ungodly 
hours.  My  fiendish  luck !" 

She  had  never  forgotten  these  incidents.  Her  mind 
was  very  receptive,  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence,  to 
the  influences  of  Owldom.  Possibly  to-day  they  would 
make  no  impression  upon  her.  The  novelty  had  worn 
off.  She  had  heard  owls  discuss  murders  at  fixed 
rates  of  remuneration,  and  she  knew  the  "tariff"  for 
suicide,  elopement,  adultery,  arson,  and  jail-breaking. 
The  last  was  always  attractive.  Nobody  "broke  jail" 
at  less  than  three  columns ! 

So  she  betook  herself  to  Owldom,  in  an  easy  and  non- 
apprehensive  frame  of  mind.  The  fact  that  Lettie  was 
now  established  in  her  home  made  her  feel  comfort- 


232 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


able.  Her  sister  was  a  moral  support,  and  the  dread- 
ful sense  of  irremediable  loneliness  had  left  her.  Let- 
tie  had  accompanied  her  to  the  theatre,  and  she  had  sent 
her  home,  in  spite  of  the  younger  Miss  Sydenham's 
fervent  entreaties  to  be  allowed  to  "go  to  the  office" 
with  her.  The  idea  of  journalism  at  midnight  ap- 
pealed irresistibly  to  Lettie;  but  Sallie  was  relentless. 
Some  day,  perhaps,  Lettie  should  accompany  her;  but 
to-night  she  was  busy.  It  was  out  of  the  question. 
And  Lettie  went  back  to  the  lugubrious  little  apart- 
ment, to  utter  her  plaints  to  Rosina,  who  was  silent  and 
unsympathetic. 

As  Sallie  entered  the  office,  she  felt  nervous.  She 
would  have  liked  to  believe  that  Mr.  Green  had  for- 
gotten her  assignment — she  even  tried  to  believe  it — 
but  she  knew  that  city  editors  were  not  forgetful. 
They  might  be  indulgent  and  amiable,  but  they  suf- 
fered from  sheet-iron  minds. 

The  night  city  editor  was  discussing  his  inevitable 
ham  sandwich  as  Miss  Sydenham  entered.  She 
adopted  a  familiarity  of  manner  that  she  was  far  from 
feeling,  and  she  made  a  strenuous  effort  to  assume  the 
recklessness  and  pictorial  joviality  so  popular  with  the 
male  owls.  Mr.  Green  certainly  looked  as  though 
nothing  had  happened  since  she  last  saw  him.  He 
was  heavy,  opaque,  blunt,  and  unyielding.  She  heard 
him  addressing  the  reporters  in  his  usual  frank  and 
unconsidered  manner.  He  had  just  dismissed  an  of- 
fice boy  with  the  withering  epithet  "Dolt!"  and  she 
heard  this  with  pleasure.  It  sounded  like  home.  Evi- 
dently nothing  had  changed.  It  would  be  easy. 

"Ah,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said  carelessly,  as  she  ap- 
proached him.  "Welcome,  little  stranger.  What's 
been  the  matter  ?  You  have  deserted  us  in  our  hour  of 
need.  Theatres  rather  dull  lately,  eh?  Well,  what's 
on  the  programme  to-night?" 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


233 


This  sounded  very  promising,  and  Sallie  felt  ex- 
tremely relieved.  "Nothing  much,"  she  replied.  "I 
came  in  particularly,  Mr.  Green,  to  tell  you  that — that 
— you  remember  Witherby's  'tip'  and  the  Stuyvesant 
matter?  Well,  I've  worked  it  up — spent  days  at  it — 
and  there's  nothing  in  it.  My  first  assignment  has 
failed,  and  I  am  furious  about  it.  It  certainly  had 
splendid  possibilities,  but  it  isn't  true — and — oh,  I'm  so 
sorry !" 

Her  words  sounded  rather  tame,  and  she  knew  it. 
She  would  have  liked  to  indicate  a  deeper  depression, 
a  keener  mortification,  but  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  now  that  she 
was  trying  to  close  this  hateful  aperture,  she  was  mere- 
ly anxious  to  close  it  quickly. 

Mr.  Green  glanced  at  her  rather  humorously.  He 
ate  his  sandwich  slowly,  and  she  could  not  quite  under- 
stand a  certain  twinkle  that  she  felt  sure  she  detected 
in  his  eye  .  .  .  yes,  it  was  a  twinkle.  "Ah !"  he  said, 
swallowing  a  crust,  "so  that  is  your  report,  Miss  Syd- 
enham.  You  have  taken  your  time,  haven't  you? 
You  just  dropped  in — er — to  tell  me  that  there  was 
nothing  in  this  story.  H'm !  That  was  most  thought- 
ful of  you.  And  journalism  sits  down  and  waits  for 
you — until  you  are  ready.  You  are  a  very  bright  and 
brilliant  critic,  Miss  Sydenham,  but  you  are  not  going 
to  make  your  mark  as  a  reporter.  We  have  just  had 
news  of  a  fire.  I  suppose  if  I  sent  you  to  it,  you 
would  come  in  some  time  next  week — or  next  year — 
and  tell  us  about  it.  Unfortunately,  my  dear  young 
woman,  we  don't  do  things  in  that  way.  We  want  our 
tit-bits  hot  from  the  griddle,  so  to  speak.  It  is  a  little 
way  we  have." 

Sallie  sat  still  and  listened  to  him,  and  her  heart 
sank.  Still,  she  would  carry  the  thing  through.  After 
all,  the  case  was  hers.  She  had  done  nothing  with  it, 


234  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  Mr.  Green  could  be  as  sarcastic  as  he  chose.  He 
could  hurl  his  shafts  of  sarcasm  at  her,  if  he  felt  re- 
lieved by  so  doing.  And  he  could  not  force  her  to 
give  him  the  slightest  inkling  as  to  the  truth  about 
Arthur  Stuyvesant.  That,  fortunately,  was  locked 
tightly  in  her  own  breast,  and  there  it  would  stay  until 
the  crack  of  doom,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned.  So 
she  laughed  rather  insolently,  and  felt  ridiculously  sure 
of  herself. 

"Bad  news  always  keeps,  Mr.  Green,"  she  said  pert- 
ly, "and,  of  course,  when  I  found  that  I  was  balked  of 
my  honest  prey,  I  considered  it  bad  news.  If  I  had 
discovered  a,  story,  I  should  have  rushed  to  you  all  alive 
with  legitimate  excitement,  but  .  .  ." 

"Tell  me  what  you  did,  Miss  Sydenham?"  he  asked, 
interrupting  her.  He  crumpled  up  the  paper  that  had 
enveloped  his  sandwich  and  threw  it  away.  Then  he 
dusted  his  hands  and  sat  up.  Sallie  still  felt  that  she 
"had  him"  where  she  wanted  him. 

"I  must  disclose  my  tactics?"  she  asked  amiably. 
"Sherlock  Holmes  must  explain  his  tactics?  Isn't  that 
rubbing  it  in,  Mr.  Green?"  (She  began  to  feel  lively 
and  rather  amused.)  "Well,  I  did  the  very  best  thing 
I  could  do.  I  called  upon  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  herself, 
and  she,  with  her  own  lips,  denied  the  story  from  start 
to  finish." 

This  lie  was  uttered  glibly,  on  the  principle  that  what 
was  worth  doing  at  all  was  worth  doing  well.  It 
shocked  her  for  a  moment,  for  she  was  unaccustomed 
•  to  falsehood ;  but  she  realized  that  it  was  well  done,  and 
she  paused  to  watch  its  effect  upon  Mr.  Green.  His 
face  was  inscrutable  and  sphinx-like. 

"She  told  you" — he  spoke  slowly,  clearing  his 
throat — "that  it  was  quite  untrue,  and  that  she  was 
living  happily  and  contentedly  with  a  husband  who  was 
very  much  abused." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  235 

"Oh,  no,"  Sallie  laughed  gayly.  She  could,  at  any 
rate,  give  a  little  "local  color"  to  her  story,  and,  inci- 
dentally, to  Arthur  Stuyvesant.  She  would  paint  things 
up  a  little  bit  for  Mr.  Green,  as  he  was  addicted  to  tints, 
and  as  a  slight  embellishment  would  do  no  harm.  "I 
didn't  say  that,  Mr.  Green,"  she  remarked  coquettishly. 
"Between  ourselves,  I  don't  believe  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant  are  living  together  at  all.  Apparently  they 
have  agreed  to  differ.  He  is  a  bad  lot,  and  she  told  me 
her  troubles — oh,  a  long  list  of  infidelities,  recrimina- 
tions and  conflicts,  but  nothing  definite,  or  tangible.  I 
tried  to  pin  her  down  to  this  particular  case,  but  she 
insisted  that  she  knew  nothing  about  it.  It  isn't  a 
question  of  one  woman,  but  of  half  a  dozen — and  all 
perfect  ladies,"  she  added  frivolously. 

He  eyed  her  with  unusual  sternness,  and  it  was  hard 
for  her  to  meet  his  look  unflinchingly.  But  she  did  it, 
and  even  managed  to  convey  an  impression  of  indiffer- 
ence. - 

"You  are  sure  of  that?" 

She  felt  that  a  little  indignation,  of  the  righteous 
order,  would  not  be  inappropriate.  "Sure  of  it,"  she 
repeated ;  "I  talked  to  the  woman.  Do  you  doubt  me? 
Shall  I  bring  you  a  certificate  of  conversation?  Sure- 
ly, Mr.  Green,  you  must  know  that  .  .  .  that  this  as- 
signment meant  .  .  .  meant  much  to  me.  I  worked 
at  it  in  the  hope  of  spearing  a  good  story,  but  when  I 
go  to  headquarters  and  discover  that  .  .  .  that  there 
isn't  a  story,  you  must  surely  believe  that  ...  it  is 
very  galling  to  my  amour  propre" 

She  wondered  why  he  looked  at  her  so  oddly,  and 
she  could  not  avoid  the  impression  that  it  was  all  ex- 
tremely ominous.  But  why?  Her  last  utterances 
were  somewhat  hesitant,  and  she  felt  annoyed  with 
herself.  Perhaps  she  was  not  as  plausible  as  she  had 


236  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

tried  to  be.  However,  she  had  said  her  say,  and  fur- 
ther discussion  was  useless. 

"I  expect  the  play  at  the  Empire  next  week  will  be 
something  rather  interesting,"  she  remarked,  in  a 
jaunty  effort  to  change  the  subject.  She  even  rose  and 
prepared  to  move  away. 

"Sit  down,  Miss  Sydenham,"  said  Mr.  Green,  rather 
imperiously,  she  thought — he  was  not  accustomed  to 
use  an  imperial  intonation  in  his  intercourse  with  her. 
"Sit  down.  I  am  not  throwing  any  doubts  upon  the 
honesty  of  your  work.  Nor  am  I  unduly  forgetful  of 
the  fact  that  you  have  lost  a  good  story,  which  is  al- 
ways deplorable.  I  am  most  sympathetic  with  my  re- 
porters when  I  see  them  fall  down.  But,  Miss  Syden- 
ham, I  am  sorry  to  tell  you  that  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  has 
misled  you.  In  fact,  to  put  it  plainly,  she  has  lied  to 
you." 

Sallie  started.  A  sensation  of  coldness  crept  down 
her  spine.  Her  quick  intelligence  was  quite  unable  to 
grasp  Mr.  Green's  possible  meaning.  She  had  no  idea 
of  "wheels  within  wheels."  She  sat  in  benumbed  ap- 
prehension and  waited. 

"Mrs.  Stuyvesant,"  he  went  on — and  there  was  as- 
perity in  his  voice — "lied  to  you.  The  mendacity  of 
women,  the  fear  of  publicity,  and  the  desire  to  avoid 
discussion,  are  the  most  dangerous  obstacles  that  re- 
porters meet.  An  experienced  reporter  knows  how  to 
cope  with  them,  and  that  is  why  I  objected  to  putting 
this  case  in  your  hands.  Possibly  you  approached 
Mrs.  Stuyvesant  courteously,  and  begged  her  to  tell 
you  the  truth.  Now,  a  seasoned  reporter  would  have 
adopted  other  tactics.  He  would  have  said  to  her, 
'Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  we  know  all.  The  story  is  in  the  of- 
fice all  set  up.  We  are  anxious  to  give  you  a  chance 
to  explain,  and  if  you  don't  do  so,  you  will  appear 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  237 

under  colors  that  you  will  not  like.'  Had  you  ap- 
proached her  in  this  way,  Miss  Sydenham,  she  would 
have  told  you  the  truth." 

Sallie  was  aghast,  and  could  merely  sit  and  listen, 
for  she  did  not  know  what  to  say,  as  she  was  quite  un- 
aware of  what  she  had  to  cope  with. 

"I  do  not  blame  you,"  he  resumed,  "because  this  is 
all  new  to  you.  I  merely  regret  that  you  did  not 
report  to  me  at  once,  not  that  it  would  have  made  much 
difference,  but  because  it  would  have  given  me  a  more 
exalted  opinion  of  your  journalistic  instinct." 

She  longed  for  the  point  .  .  .  she  thirsted  for  it. 
But  Mr.  Green  rather  enjoyed  his  lordly  attitude,  and 
the  pose  did  him  good.  He  liked  the  sound  of  his 
own  voice,  when  he  had  time  and  opportunity  to  select 
appropriate  language  in  which  to  clothe  his  ideas. 

"Fortunately,  Miss  Sydenham"  —  and  he  almost 
cooed — "in  journalism  we  do  not  put  all  our  eggs  into 
one  basket.  We  have  our  little  surprises.  If  one 
thing  fails,  we  turn  hopefully  to  another.  In  a  well- 
regulated  newspaper  office  the  sources  of  information 
are  many.  A  reporter  works  up  a  story,  and  announces 
that  there  is  nothing  in  it.  Perhaps  this  is  true,  and 
perhaps  it  isn't.  At  any  rate,  we  do  not  bank  irrevoca- 
bly upon  his  word.  He  is  human,  of  course,  but  the 
machinery  of  events  revolves — and  one  man  counts  for 
little  in  that  machinery.  When  I  gave  you  that  assign- 
ment, I  kept  my  eyes  and  my  ears  open.  I  did  not  dis- 
credit your  ability,  but  I  did  not  disregard  other 
sources." 

Sallie  moistened  her  dry  lips,  and  tried  to  speak,  but 
without  success.  Mr.  Green  looked  at  her  in  rather 
spectacular  sympathy.  Naturally,  he  reasoned,  she 
would  feel  rather  cut  up.  Reporters  were  always  cha- 
grined when  their  own  human  fallibility  was  suddenly 


238  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

flashed  before  them.  And  this  was  her  first  assign- 
ment. .  .  .  He  felt  admirably  merciful. 

"In  a  newspaper  office,"  he  declared  slowly  .  .  .  she 
squirmed  at  this  apparently  goal-less  tirade  ...  it 
tortured  her  .  .  .  "the  most  valuable  man  is  the  man 
with  the  longest  list  of  useful  acquaintances.  I  always 
say  to  my  reporters,  'Cultivate  people,  for  they  will 
help  you.'  I  flatter  myself,  Miss  Sydenham,  that  I 
have  lived  up  to  this  precept  myself.  I  have  kept  it 
continually  before  me.  I  have  a  lunching  acquaint- 
ance with  statesmen,  Wall  Street  financiers,  politicians, 
city  officials,  lawyers,  and  detectives  .  .  ." 

"Won't  you  .  .  .  won't  you.  .  ."  she  pumped  out 
the  words  with  difficulty,  "please,  Mr.  Green,  tell  me 
what  all  this  means.  I — I — don't  understand." 

He  smiled  indulgently,  and  savored  the  joy  of  "mak- 
ing an  impression."  It  was  quite  a  pleasure  to  initiate 
this  most  receptive  girl  into  the  limitless  mysteries  of 
Owldom.  He  treasured  up  his  denouement,  and  de- 
layed it  as  long  as  he  could,  for  the  sake  of  dramatic 
effect.  And  he  had  no  idea  that  the  very  apparent  dis- 
tress of  the  poor  little  owl  by  his  side,  was  due  to  any 
other  cause  than  that  of  mortification  at  a  story  "gang 
aglee"  in  a  very  ordinary  way. 

"One  of  my  warmest  friends,"  he  said,  "is  Sylvester 
Jackson,  a  Pinkerton  detective.  I  might  almost  say 
that  we  are  brothers.  In  fact,  Mr.  Jackson  dines  at 
my  house,  and  Mrs.  Green  knows  his  fondness  for 
curry,  and  also  for  terrapin.  Many  tips  has  good  old 
Jackson  given  me,  and  I  could  tell  you  of  a  long  list  of 
'beats'  secured  by  me  at  no  other  cost  than  a  dish  of 
curry,  or  a  casserole  of  terrapin.  Well,  Miss  Syden- 
ham, to  cut  a  long  story  short"  (which  he  hated  to  do 
in  this  case),  "Mr.  Jackson  dined  with  me  a  couple  of 
nights  ago,  and  he  gave  me  a  tip  that  will  interest  you. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  239 

Mrs.  Stuyvesant  has  given  her  case  to  him.  He  has 
already  discovered  the  truth  of  the  report  that  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  has  an  'address'  at  which  he  meets  an  un- 
known woman.  He  has  already  ascertained  the  ad- 
dress. All  that  remains  for  him  to  do  is  to  catch  them 
there  together — in  well-attested  flagrant  delit.  That  he 
is  about  to  do,  and  he  has  intimated  that  if  I  care  to 
send  a  reporter  with  him,  I  can  do  so.  This — this, 
Miss  Sydenham,  is  absolutely  exclusive.  You  will 
realize  that  this  Stuyvesant  woman  has  simply  made 
a  guy  of  you — if  you  will  excuse  the  expression — and 
you  will  also  see  how  the  machinery  of  journalism 
works." 

He  paused,  in  supreme  delight  at  his  own  well- 
chosen  words.  A  great  dread  seized  Sallie,  and  for  a 
moment  she  mentally  collapsed.  It  seemed  to  her  that 
the  worst  had  happened,  and  that  Mr.  Green  knew  the 
whole  hateful  story,  in  all  its  naked  ugliness.  Her 
thoughts,  however,  were  quick,  and  while  he  was  yarn- 
ing on,  she  was  reviewing  the  situation.  It  was  cer- 
tainly dangerous  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  but  she  had  warned 
Arthur  Stuyvesant.  She  had,  in  fact,  told  him  all  that 
Mr.  Green  knew.  She  had  put  him  on  his  guard. 
But  her  chronology  of  these  happenings  must  be  con- 
sidered. The  detective  had  discovered  that  there  was 
a  rendezvous;  but  possibly  by  this  time  her  anony- 
mous letter  had  borne  fruit,  and  the  meeting-place  no 
longer  existed.  Still,  she  had  written  that  letter  imme- 
diately after  her  visit  to  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  and  the 
detective  had  left  the  house  an  hour  earlier  merely  to 
begin  his  search. 

If  he  had  discovered  the  rendezvous  .  .  .  then  it 
had  not  been  given  up  immediately  on  receipt  of  her 
letter.  Perhaps  the  missive  had  gone  astray  .  .  .  per- 
haps it  had  been  delayed  .  .  .  perhaps  they  had  not 


240  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

met  until  it  had  been  there  for  a  day  or  two.  She  was 
racked  by  an  agonizing  uncertainty.  But  they  would 
get  the  letter,  and  no  man,  with  a  reputation  in  jeop- 
ardy, would  be  such  a  fool  as  to  disregard  it.  Anony- 
mous letters  were,  of  course,  liable  to  be  disregarded, 
but  not  such  a  note  as  she  had  written.  .  .  . 

"Well,  Miss  Sydenham,"  said  the  night  city  editor, 
rather  annoyed  at  the  silence  that  greeted  his  well- 
conceived,  and  admirably  executed  harangue,  "do  you 
follow  me  ?" 

Sallie  resolved  upon  a  bold  stroke,  for  she  felt  des- 
perate. "Yes,"  she  replied,  "I  quite  follow  you.  I 
quite  understand.  But  let  me  tell  you  this :  your  de- 
tective may  fancy  that  he  has  discovered  a  rendezvous, 
but  he  will  find  nobody  there,  because  there  is  nobody 
to  find.  Your  reporter  will  be  indulging  in  a  wild  goose 
chase  just  like  mine.  It  sounds  very  plausible,  and 
you're  a  very  clever  man,  Mr.  Green,  and  I  admire  you. 
But  your  detective  is  wrong.  There  will  be  no  discov- 
ery. There  will  be  no  story.  It  is  all  untrue." 

Mr.  Green  rather  admired  the  vehemence  of  her  ex- 
pression. He  felt  that  she  was  knocking  her  head 
against  a  stone  wall,  and  although  the  process  was 
painful,  still  it  was  worth  watching — when  it  was  well 
done.  And  Sallie  was  doing  it  very  well  indeed. 

"Perhaps,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  remarked  blandly. 
"Perhaps.  We  shall  see." 

"You  will  send  a  reporter  on  this  fool's  errand  ?"  she 
cried  excitedly,  scarcely  realizing  that  she  was  address- 
ing a  doughty  potentate  of  Owldom ;  "you  will  do  this, 
when  I  tell  you  that  it  is  useless.  Suppose  Mr.  Stuy- 
vesant  has  an  address — or  had  an  address — it  doesn't 
follow  that  he  used  it  for  clandestine  meetings.  Let 
the  detective  go,  and  see  what  he  can  find.  He  will 
find  nothing — nothing — nothing.  I  am  willing  to 
swear  to  it." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  241 

She  was  in  a  rather  hopeless  condition  of  excitement, 
and  the  reporters  paused  in  their  work  to  listen  to  her. 
Mr.  Green  was  exceedingly  amused.  What  a  little 
spitfire !  What  a  novel  way  of  escaping  an  unpleasant 
situation!  What  a  quaint  girl  Miss  Sydenham  was, 
and  how  bitterly  she  resented  this  defeat. 

"I  am  sorry  you  feel  like  that  about  it,  Miss  Syden- 
ham," he  said  suavely.  "It  is  always  irritating,  in 
journalism,  to  be  thrown  down.  But  it  happens  to  us 
all.  Try  to  look  at  the  thing  sensibly,  and  when  you 
read  the  story  we  shall  have — and  I  fancy  it  will  be 
a  scorcher — you  will  have  new  impressions  of  a  news- 
paper office,  and  I  fancy  you  won't  clamor  for  any 
more  assignments,  eh?" 

She  could  have  throttled  him  gladly,  as  he  sat  there 
exulting  in  a  catastrophe  that  even  to  his  dull  intelli- 
gence would  make  some  sort  of  an  appeal.  She  longed 
to  hurl  the  truth  at  him,  and  tell  him  that  if  he  per- 
sisted in  this  demoniac  quest  of  sensationalism,  he 
would  find  that  his  own  managing  editor  would 
dampen  his  ardor  very  quickly.  Had  he  been  less  of  a 
machine,  she  would  have  done  it.  She  would  have 
thrown  the  situation  at  him,  and  have  paralyzed  him. 
She  would  have  said,  "Go  ahead,  and  you'll  find  that 
the  mysterious  girl  is  the  fiancee  of  your  managing 
editor."  She  could  not  do  it.  It  would  have  been 
non-loyal  to  Jack;  it  would  have  been  a  surreptitious 
nine-days'  wonder  in  Newspaper  Row.  Besides,  the 
detective  would  find  nothing.  There  was  not  one 
chance  in  a  hundred,  she  told  herself,  that  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  and  Ivy  Hampton  would  run  such  unneces- 
sary risks.  .  .  . 

She  would  make  one  more  effort — though  she 
scarcely  realized  what  it  meant.  She  quieted  herself, 
and  put  forth  her  allurements  once  more. 

"I  bow  to  the  inevitable,  Mr.  Green,"  she  said,  meek- 


242  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ly.  "You  are  the  inevitable,  of  course,  and  what  you 
have  told  me  is  a  revelation.  I  could  scarcely  believe 
it,  and  that  is  why  I  may  have  seemed  refractory.  But 
it  is  hard  to  be  squelched,  isn't  it?  You  are  going  to 
send  a  reporter  with  Mr.  Jackson.  When?" 

Mr.  Green  humored  her,  though  the  process  was 
rather  unusual.  "As  soon  as  he  notifies  me  to  do  so," 
he  replied.  "It  may  be  very  soon.  A  telephone  mes- 
sage might  come  in  a  day — in  an  hour — now.  It  all 
depends  upon  Jackson.  He  is  a  very  cautious  man, 
and  he  knows  his  business." 

"Mr.  Green,"  she  said  eagerly;  and  she  placed  her 
hand  on  his  chubby  shoulder,  "I  know  I'm  a  failure, 
and  that  I  have  done  my  work  badly,  because  I'm  new. 
But  I  don't  like  to  give  it  up.  Will  you  let  me  be  the 
reporter  to  accompany  Mr.  Jackson?" 

He  was  astonished,  and — perhaps  for  the  first  time — 
into  his  befogged,  densely  routined  brain  crept  a  sus- 
picion of  the  unusual. 

"You,"  he  cried,  "you — a  girl — want  to  accompany 
a  detective  in  a  quest  of — er — adultery  ?  You  ask  this, 
and  for  no  reason  at  all?  Really,  Miss  Sydenham — " 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said  recklessly  and  miserably,  "I 
know  it's  unwomanly  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  I 
know  it  isn't  respectable,  and  that  a  girl  ought  to  be 
terrified  at  the  possibility.  But  I'm  not,  Mr.  Green.  I 
can't  help  it.  I'm  not.  Please  let  me  go — please." 

He  scratched  his  head  with  the  tip  of  his  pen,  and 
puzzled.  This  certainly  meant  something;  but  what 
did  it — what  could  it  mean  ?  He  stared  at  her,  seeking 
inspiration  in  her  eyes,  in  her  manner,  in  her  pose.  He 
was  completely  perplexed. 

"I  can't  help  thinking,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said 
slowly,  "that  you  are  concealing  something.  This  zeal 
— this  enthusiasm  is  not  reportorial.  You  are  inter- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  243 

ested  for  reasons  that  you  have  not  told  me.  What 
are  those  reasons?  Surely  I  have  a  right  to  ask. 
They  exist,  do  they  not?  The  case  appeals  to 
you  .  .  ." 

Confession  was  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue.  After 
all,  Mr.  Green  was  a  man,  and  he  had  a  wife,  and  he 
would  understand.  He  must  possess  a  certain  amount 
of  the  spirit  of  loyalty.  He  would  surely  see  in  this  im- 
plication of  his  superior  editor  an  all-sufficient  reason 
for  allowing  the  matter  to  drop.  Yet  it  was  impossi- 
ble ...  it  was  beyond  her  power. 

"I  am  not  interested,"  she  cried.  "I  am  not.  How 
can  you  suppose  such  a  thing?  What  could  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  and  his  inamorata  be  to  me?  I  despise 
him  ...  I  loathe  him.  I — I  am  anxious  to  confront 
him  ...  to  see  his  smug  self-complacence  vanish. 
That  is  all.  May  I  go  with  Mr.  Jackson?" 

"No,"  he  replied,  angry  at  last ;  "certainly  not.  I  am 
surprised  that  you  should  ask  it.  The  matter  is  ended. 
You  had  your  assignment,  and  you  failed  in  it.  This 
persistent  chatter  around  the  subject  is  ridiculous.  I 
told  you  the  situation,  in  order  to  explain  the  complexi- 
ties of  journalism,  and  you  behave  like  a  spoiled  child. 
I  have  no  more  time  to  waste,  Miss  Sydenham." 

She  accepted  her  dismissal  and  rose ;  but  she  was  not 
discouraged.  Detective  Sylvester  Jackson  might  be  a 
very  "smart"  person,  and  undoubtedly  was.  But  he 
had  "detected"  nothing  so  far,  either  because  there  was 
nothing  to  detect,  or  because  the  time  was  not  ripe. 
She  felt  that  she  was  a  match  for  him,  or  for  anybody 
else,  except  journalists,  owls,  night  city  editors.  .  .  . 

She  would  ascertain  if  her  letter  had  fulfilled  its  mis- 
sion. That  would  be  easy  to  ascertain.  And  if  she 
found  that  it  had  failed,  she  would  intrude  herself  upon 
the  dulcet  tete-a-tete  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Compton,  and — 


244  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

distasteful,  repugnant  though  it  might  be — she  would 
herself  explain  the  situation  to  them. 

She  was  aglow  with  enthusiasm  and  energy.  She 
felt  that  she  could  not  sleep  quietly  until  she  had  begun 
to  put  her  plans  in  operation.  And  before  going  home 
— to  Lettie  and  her  slumbers — she  decided  to  take  a 
nocturnal  glance  at  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Compton's  hiding- 
place.  It  was  a  nauseating  trip,  in  cold,  dark  midnight 
cars,  through  regions  filled  with  roysterers  and  night- 
birds.  That  part  of  her  journey  that  had  to  be  accom- 
plished on  foot  was  particularly  repulsive.  She  was 
stared  at,  accosted,  and  even  grasped  by  the  stagnant 
denizens  of  foul  and  treacherous  thoroughfares. 

There  were  lights  in  most  of  the  windows  of  the 
house  in  which  Ivy  and  Arthur  were  Comptons.  There 
were  none  in  theirs.  Their  name  was  still  visible  over 
the  letter  box,  in  the  vestibule.  Evidently,  they  had 
not  relinquished  their  pied-a-terre.  The  lack  of  illumi- 
nation, of  course,  meant  nothing,  as  they  would  not 
pass  their  nights  there.  Ivy  was  probably  sleeping  the 
slumber  of  the  reluctant  ingenue  in  Central  Park  West. 
Sallie  could  picture  her  pale,  cool  Madonna  face  on  its 
pillow,  haloed  by  strands  of  silver-gold  hair. 

But  the  name  was  there  above  the  bell !  The  apart- 
ment still  belonged  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Compton.  Per- 
haps they  had  abandoned  it  in  abrupt  finality.  Per- 
haps the  time  had  been  merely  inauspicious  for  the 
meeting. 

But  if  they  did  meet  there  again,  Sallie  swore  that 
she  would  confront  them.  And  detective  Jackson  .  .  . 
she  smiled  and  snapped  her  fingers. 


n 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

ACK  CHILDERS  chuckled  in  extreme  appre- 
ciation of  the  result  of  Miss  Sydenham's  as- 
signment. Night  city  editor  Green,  who 
knew  his  superior's  propensity  for  entertain- 
ment, always  saved  up  the  "tit-bits"  of  the  office  for 
him,  and  Mr.  Childers  listened  to  many  quaint  inci- 
dents of  Newspaper  Row,  as  he  lolled  nonchalantly  in 
his  office,  and  took  life  pleasantly.  Mr.  Green,  after 
his  somewhat  palpitant  interview  with  Miss  Sydenham, 
forgot  his  doubts  and  his  apprehensions,  and  returned 
to  his  original  view  of  the  girl's  non-success,  and  he 
built  it  up  into  a  merry  anecdote  for  Jack  Childers'  de- 
lectation. He  liked  to  please  Mr.  Childers.  In  Owl- 
dom  an  ounce  of  authority  can  be  kneaded  into  pounds 
of  flunkeyism.  The  powers  are  deftly  graded.  It  is 
like  a  comic  opera  company,  in  which  the  reporters  are 
the  chorus,  and  the  managing  editors  the  principals, 
standing  haughtily  in  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  de- 
claiming beautiful,  puissant  things. 

Mr.  Childers  thought  Sallie's  incursion  into  the  re- 
portorial  field  one  of  the  best  jokes  of  the  season.  The 
idea  of  her  interview  with  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  according 
to  Mr.  Green's  adaptation  of  the  story,  appealed  to  him 
with  an  intensity  of  humor.  It  occurred  to  him  that 
the  picture  of  Sallie  in  her  war  paint,  toying  with  the 
sensationalism  of  adultery,  and  probing  the  languishing 
plaintiff  herself,  was  quite  too  killing.  And  he  was 
convulsed  at  the  result — at  Sallie's  easy  belief  that  there 
was  "nothing  in  it,"  and  at  her  charmingly  supercil- 
ious neglect  to  "report  progress"  to  Mr.  Green. 
It  was  so  extremely  original  and  so  archly  funny. 


246  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

He  wondered  if  Sallie  had  laughed  with  Mrs.  Stuyve- 
sant,  and  had  aired  her  quaint  and  outre  philosophy. 
He  could  imagine  Miss  Sydenham  discussing  the  case 
with  outbursts  of  epigrams,  and  he  was  not  surprised 
that  she  had  failed  to  "worm"  a  "story"  from  the  act- 
or's wife.  Mr.  Childers  could  not  hear  enough. 
He  plied  Mr.  Green  with  questions,  and  sat  tinkling 
with  laughter  at  his  answers.  And  Green,  in  the 
safety  of  an  immaculate  position  that  assured  to  him 
all  the  truth  of  the  incident,  felt  that  he  could  afford  to 
weave  Miss  Sydenham's  exploit  into  a  sort  of  comic 
interlude.  Had  the  paper  been  "left"  on  the  "story" 
he  would  probably  have  avoided  Mr.  Childers.  Mr. 
Green  always  encased  himself  in  an  impenetrable  shell 
of  mystery,  when  things  went  wrong.  And  he  was 
careful  to  place  the  responsibility  for  the  miscarriage 
upon  the  first  set  of  available  shoulders  that  he  could 
find. 

Mr.  Childers,  as  a  man,  had  little  sympathy  with 
these  owl  pursuits;  but,  as  a  journalist  and  a  man- 
aging editor,  he  was  bound  to  regard  them.  And  he 
did  his  duty  by  them.  Many  a  nauseous  dose  had  he 
swallowed ;  but  he  never  grew  quite  accustomed  to  the 
taste,  and  he  invariably  promised  himself  that  one  day 
he  would  "own  a  paper"  that  should  be  as  solid  and 
heavily  dignified  as  the  London  Times,  the  mighty 
thunderer  that  would  make  such  splendid  wrapping 
paper  and  parcel  covers  in  New  York.  There  were 
many  denizens  of  New  York's  Owldom  who  saw  happy 
rest  and  stout,  stolid  dolce  far  niente  in  the  lugubrious 
doughiness  of  the  London  Times. 

The  managing  editor  was  anxious  to  see  Miss  Syden- 
ham; but  she  had  been  strangely  absent  of  late.  He 
missed  the  uptown  trips  on  the  Elevated  train — even 
more  thoroughly  than  he  realized.  He  had  uncon- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  247 

sciously  grown  accustomed  to  them  as  relaxation,  and 
he  had  no  intention  of  allowing  Miss  Sydenham  to  neg- 
lect him.  He  looked  upon  these  trips  as  his  perquisites, 
and  his  aunt  and  Miss  Hampton  found  him  singularly 
"cranky"  when  he  was  forced  to  abstain.  There  were 
other  "jolly  good  fellows"  in  the  office,  of  course ;  but 
they  wore  trousers,  and  Jack  Childers  was  not  inclined 
to  replace  Miss  Sydenham. 

He  could  not  help  noticing  that  she  was  a  little  dif- 
ferent in  her  manner  of  late.  She  seemed  to  be  slight- 
ly distraite,  and  the  frivol  of  her  talk  was  less  spon- 
taneous. He  knew  that  she  was  not  ridiculously 
conventional  enough  to  pass  him  by  because  he  was  la- 
belled "engaged."  Other  women  might  do  it,  but  such 
a  proceeding  would  be  quite  unlike  Sallie  Sydenham. 
He  did  not  believe  that  she  considered  his  sex  at  all, 
and  he  told  himself  that  he  was  far  from  considering 
hers.  Mr.  Childers  had  no  faith  in  platonic  attach- 
ments, as  a  general  thing,  but  in  Sallie's  case  it  was 
even  less  than  platonic. 

His  "engagement"  to  Miss  Hampton  had  by  no 
means  altered  his  life.  It  was  a  pleasant  arrangement, 
and  not  at  all  moving.  It  was  progressing  "as  well  as 
could  be  expected" — as  he  always  felt  absurdly  inclined 
to  say  when  questioned.  Ivy  was  quite  well,  thanks, 
and  able  to  be  about — also  thanks.  He  had  discovered 
no  new  charms  in  his  cousin ;  but  Jack  Childers  did  not 
believe — as  so  many  seem  to  believe — that  an  engage- 
ment brings  out  a  girl's  qualities  as  if  they  were  a  rash, 
or  an  eruption — better  out  than  in. 

To  be  sure,  he  now  permitted  himself  to  accord  Miss 
Hampton  a  chaste  kiss  or  two  on  fitting  occasions. 
But  it  was  quite  perfunctory  and  his  blood  pulsed  no 
more  warmly ;  nor  did  hers,  he  was  quite  certain.  Once 
or  twice  he  felt  the  irony  of  this  condition,  and  he  won- 


248  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

dered  if  Lamp-Post  Lucy  could  tell  him  why  he  was 
"so  cold  and  unresponsive."  Possibly  she  had  some 
recipe  for  it.  He  felt  certain  that  Lamp-Post  Lucy 
and  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  could,  between 
them,  brew  him  some  admirable  advice.  Later  on,  of 
course,  he  would  be  obliged  to  "incandesce"  a  bit,  but 
just  at  present  matters  were  cooler  and,  perhaps,  more 
desirable  as  they  were.  He  knew  that  flamboyant  man- 
ifestations of  affection  were  rather  bourgeois;  still,  he 
reasoned,  those  who  did  without  them  missed  a  good 
deal.  They  were  supposed  to  be  natural,  and  a  man 
could  not  go  through  life  in  artificial  apathy  just  for 
the  sake  of  "good  form." 

He  liked  Ivy  principally  because  she  was  such  a  pic- 
turesque contrast  to  the  self-supporting  ladies  of  Owl- 
dom  with  whom  he  came  in  such  brusque  and  frequent 
contact.  She  chilled  him  so  refreshingly.  It  was  like 
sitting  in  the  shade  "under  a  spreading  chestnut  tree" 
to  be  near  her.  When  he  got  home  late  at  night  or 
early  in  the  morning,  all  a-fever  with  the  worries  and 
cares  of  journalism,  it  was  pleasant  to  meet  Ivy  in  her 
cool,  chaste  peignoir,  her  silver-gold  hair  knotted  loose- 
ly on  her  neck,  and  with  her  meek  Puritan  eyes  free 
from  all  perturbing  influences.  It  was  as  good  as  a 
bromide.  It  rushed  his  temperature  down  to  the  nor- 
mal point,  and  many  formidable  problems  that  had 
seemed  to  him  unsolvable  in  the  early  part  of  the  morn- 
ing, ranged  themselves  discreetly  and  satisfactorily  in 
his  mind  as  he  sipped  his  cup  of  bouillon,  sitting  by  her 
side. 

It  was  certainly  a  cosy  arrangement.  Aunt  Hamp- 
ton, who  always  used  to  sit  up  in  the  drowsy  propriety 
of  chaperonage,  during  these  meetings,  felt  that  she 
could  now  leave  Jack  and  Ivy  together.  It  was  emi- 
nently proper  to  do  so.  Moreover  .  .  .  she  was  not 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  249 

far  away.  Mrs.  Hampton  felt  that  nothing  wrong 
would  happen.  From  her  adjoining  bedroom  she 
could  have  heard  a  kiss,  but  she  felt  bound  to  admit 
that  she  had  never  done  so.  Nothing  but  the  soft  un- 
dertones of  dialogue  reached  her  ears,  as  she  sank  to 
slumber.  She  would  perhaps  have  liked  to  feel  that 
her  duties  as  chaperone  were  a  trifle  more  arduous.  It 
would  have  pleased  her  to  frown  at  an  occasional  out- 
break of  youthful  impetuosity,  and  she  believed  that 
she  could  have  done  it  very  gracefully  indeed.  But 
she  could  sleep  in  perfect  security,  certain  that  the 
convenances  would  receive  no  unhandsome  treatment. 
Yet  she  would  gladly  have  remained  awake  .  .  . 

No  date  had  been  fixed  for  the  wedding;  the  "glad 
day"  stayed  frigidly  unnamed.  Mrs.  Hampton  tried 
vainly  to  stir  up  a  little  enthusiasm  on  the  question. 
She  would  have  liked  to  see  Ivy  go  out  and  buy  things 
— those  beautiful,  useless  things  that  excitable  brides- 
elect  love  to  purchase.  It  would  have  given  her  some- 
thing to  talk  about  to  her  cronies.  It  was  always  an 
exhilarating  topic,  and  elderly  ladies,  from  their  ped- 
estal of  superiority,  and  the  wisdom  that  the  years  have 
brought,  cling  to  it  as  a  sort  of  souvenir. 

But  Miss  Hampton  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  and  her 
aunt  reluctantly  admitted  that  the  edicts  of  modern 
"good  form"  were  rather  cheerless.  Ivy  was  submis- 
sive, non-refractory,  but  hopelessly  apathetic.  If  she 
had  only  worked  things !  Surely  the  most  rigid  rules 
of  etiquette  could  scarcely  have  conflicted  with  the 
making  of  doylies,  sofa  pillows,  and  the  hundred  arti- 
cles of  decoration  that  were  consistent  with  refined  pos- 
sibilities. The  girl's  frequent  absences  from  home 
raised  hopes  in  Mrs.  Hampton's  breast.  Each  time  she 
returned,  the  elder  lady  looked  for  parcels,  bundles,  the 
feminine  symbols  of  "shopping."  She  waited  eagerly 


250  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

for  some  such  manifestation  of  betrothed  impulse. 
And  the  disappointment  was  keen. 

Ivy  had  always  been  to  afternoon  teas  or  to  chat 
with  her  girl  friends,  and  it  was  on  these  returns  that 
she  really  seemed  most  antipathetic  to  allusions  to  Jack 
Childers.  As  a  rule,  she  listened  placidly  to  the  gar- 
rulity of  her  aunt ;  but  on  these  occasions  she  was  irri- 
tated by  the  chatter,  and  the  perpetual  suggestion.  And 
Mrs.  Hampton  began  to  consider  the  condition  of 
things  as  due  to  Ivy's  peculiar  temperament. 

Once  or  twice  she  made  unsuccessful  attempts  to  rec- 
tify matters — not  that  she  admitted  a  positive  need  of 
rectification.  The  engagement  of  one  of  Ivy 's  friends  had 
been  announced,  and  nobody  had  ever  dared  to  criticize 
the  perfect  "good  form"  of  Pollie  Bethson.  Yet  Miss 
Bethson,  after  her  betrothal,  was  very  unlike  Ivy.  She 
was  eager,  fervent,  and  enthusiastic.  She  talked  of 
her  Paul  in  rhapsody ;  she  contemplated  her  domestic- 
ity in  admirable  effervescence ;  her  projects  were  aired, 
her  plans  were  ventilated,  her  happiness  was  apparent 
to  the  merest  outsider.  She  behaved  as  a  girl  should 
behave  in  the  fruition  of  her  dearest  hopes. 

Mrs.  Hampton  hoped  that  Ivy  would  be  impressed 
by  all  this.  She  invited  Pollie  Bethson  to  the  house; 
she  led  her  on,  she  drew  her  out,  she  stimulated  her  to 
fervent  expressions  ...  all  in  the  hope  of  interest- 
ing Ivy.  But  Miss  Hampton  was  unbudging,  en- 
trenched behind  the  gray  cloak  of  her  Puritanism,  and 
she  listened  to  it  all  without  responding  in  kind.  Pol- 
lie  Bethson  was  selecting  furniture,  and  spent  her  time 
in  the  fascinating  emporia  downtown.  It  was  inspiring 
to  listen  to  her,  and  Mrs.  Hampton  felt  the  temporary 
return  of  her  own  youth  as  she  heard  this  adorable 
small-talk  and  this  enviable,  feminine  chiffonage. 

"I  could  almost  wish,  Ivy,"  she  said,  with  a  sigh,  one 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  251 

afternoon  after  Pollie  Bethson's  departure,  "that  you 
were  as  enthusiastic  as  Miss  Bethson — perhaps  not 
quite  as  enthusiastic,"  she  added,  in  order  to  chasten 
her  remark.  "But  she  does  seem  young  and  happy, 
and  one  can't  help  thinking  that  her  Paul  is  a  lucky 
man." 

Ivy's  lip  curled  and  she  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "It 
is  very  nice,"  she  said.  "Pollie  reminds  me  of  cook  and 
her  policeman.  They  are  also  young  and  happy — es- 
pecially the  policeman." 

"It  is  not  quite  necessary,"  the  elder  lady  retorted 
severely,  "to  turn  everything  I  say  into  ridicule.  Nor 
do  I  see  that  the  perfectly  appointed  engagement  of 
Miss  Bethson  has  any  points  of  similarity  with  the 
kitchen  affair  you  mention.  If  I  did  not  know  you,  I 
should  really  be  inclined  to  think  that  your  engagement 
to  Jack  was  a  mistake.  Self-repression  is  very  desir- 
able beforehand,  but  afterwards  it  may  surely  be  re- 
laxed." 

Miss  Hampton  turned  away  to  hide  a  smile  as  she 
heard  "self-repression"  hurled  at  her.  She  thought  of 
an  East  Side  apartment  and  of  Mrs.  Compton  scorch- 
ing Mr.  Compton. in  a  sirocco  of  fervor.  She  saw  her 
other  self,  in  all  its  fiery  demonstration,  as  in  a  vision. 
She  gazed  "on  this  picture,  and  on  that,"  and  she  won- 
dered at  this  dual  personality.  She  had  certainly 
two  sides  most  marvellously  differentiated.  She  took 
little  trouble  to  hide  anything,  and  she  was  surprised 
at  Mrs.  Hampton's  blindness.  Elderly  ladies  were  very 
easily  gulled.  No  revelation  would  have  affrighted 
Miss  Hampton,  and  the  situation  in  which  she  found 
herself  was  due  rather  to  deference  to  Arthur  Stuyve- 
sant,  than  to  her  own  personal  desires.  Those  clan- 
destine arrangements  were  the  only  ones  possible,  and 
she  accepted  them.  But  she  had  no  intention  of  feign- 


252  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

ing  an  overwhelming  affection  for  Jack  Childers,  whom 
she  tolerated  and  rather  liked.  He  appealed  to  her 
placid,  Puritan-like  pose,  and  was  not  disturbing. 
Moreover,  he  seemed  perfectly  satisfied  with  existing 
conditions,  and  she  thought  that  he,  too,  might  possi- 
bly have  another  side  that  was  not  available  for  home 
consumption. 

"I  am  not  of  an  enthusiastic  nature,"  she  said  to 
Mrs.  Hampton,  "and  I  consider  that  Pollie  Bethson 
makes  a  vulgar  exhibition  of  herself.  It  may  be  very 
stimulating,  but  it  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  is  more  ap- 
propriate in  a  boudoir.  I  am  sorry  that  I  do  not  meet 
with  your  approval,  but  Jack  does  not  complain.  And 
after  all  ...  it  is  Jack  to  whom  I  am  .  .  .  engaged." 

The  word  "engaged"  amused  her.  It  was  so  cut  and 
dried.  It  seemed  so  silly  to  think  of  human  passions, 
and  then,  of  being  prettily  and  methodically  "engaged." 
She  liked  to  speak  the  word,  because  it  seemed  to  point 
to  the  reality  of  her  untrammelled  love  of  Arthur  Stuy- 
vesant.  She  might  be  "engaged"  to  Jack  Childers,  but 
such  an  expression  could  never  under  any  turn  of  the 
kaleidoscope  approach  her  attachment  to  Mr.  Stuyve- 
sant.  The  precepts  of  etiquette  titillated  her  fancy. 
Mr.  Childers  might  now  kiss  her  with  perfect  propri- 
ety, and  he  could  even  clasp  her  to  his  breast  .  .  .  just 
because  they  were  "engaged,"  and  the  people  who  went 
to  afternoon  teas  had  been  kind  enough  to  sanction 
it  all. 

This  regular  and  well-conceived  grading  of  love  en- 
tertained Ivy  Hampton.  She  felt  that  she  could  walk 
up  to  the  denouement  of  marriage  by  shallow  steps. 
The  first  step  was  an  easy  attachment,  kissless  and 
undemonstrative ;  second  step,  an  embrace,  a  coy 
squeeze,  a  look  in  the  eyes;  third  step,  "engagement," 
with  kisses,  applauded  by  the  mob,  and  constant  com- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote 


253 


munion;  steps  four,  five,  and  six,  more  kisses,  luxuri- 
ous tete-a-tetes,  suggestions  of  the  blissful  future ;  sev- 
enth step  and  top  of  the  ladder,  the  absolute  blending 
of  souls,  that  all  the  world  approved. 

Miss  Hampton's  cool  cynicism  enjoyed  this  suave, 
matter-of-fact  labelling  of  emotionalism.  She  herself 
had  begun  at  the  top  of  the  ladder,  which  the  eyes  of 
the  world  cannot  see,  must  not  see,  dare  not  see.  The 
eyes  had  to  be  deftly  prepared  for  it,  and  the  film  re- 
moved as  methodically  as  one  peels  apples  or  seeds  rai- 
sins. But  she  never  argued  the  matter,  and  looked 
upon  "women  who  did"  and  the  verbose  heroines  in- 
vented by  feminine  authors  as  very  unnecessary  people, 
who  were  too  fond  of  hearing  themselves  talk.  These 
little  affairs  were  eminently  private,  and  in  real  life 
women  who  believed  in  them  were  wise  enough  to  keep 
their  beliefs  to  themselves.  Ivy  had  suffered,  of 
course.  The  knowledge  that  Stuyvesant  had  a  wife 
had  been  bitter  to  her,  and  at  times  she  had  rebelled  at 
the  rigidity  of  the  conventions.  They  made  matters 
difficult  .  .  .  and  very  expensive.  But  of  late  she  had 
schooled  herself  to  regard  those  very  difficulties  and 
subterfuges  as  a  voluptuous  feature  of  her  love.  A 
faint  tinge  of  the  ecstasy  of  martyrdom  caught  her  oc- 
casionally. When  she  suffered  ...  it  was  for  him. 
The  path  that  she  followed,  with  its  briars  and  its  bram- 
bles, led  to  him,  and  she  braved  its  intricacies  for  his 
sake. 

Even  her  "engagement"  was  part  of  her  martyr- 
dom ;  her  marriage,  if  it  ever  occurred,  would  be  its  cli- 
max, the  very  summit  of  her  voluptuous  tragedy. 
There  were  times  when  she  fought  in  physical  rebellion 
at  the  idea ;  but  those  occasions  were  now  more  widely 
spread,  and  she  hoped  that  in  time  they  would  entirely 
disappear. 


254  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

But  she  could  not  play  the  game  of  the  mutinous  lit- 
tle fiancee  for  the  benefit  of  Mrs.  Hampton,  though  it 
was  always  a  pretty  game  and  one  that  never  failed 
to  produce  a  salubrious  effect.  She  could  not  work 
doylies,  and  embroider  mantel-piece  covers,  and  manip- 
ulate table-centres,  and  make  herself  pretty  wrappers 
for  when  she  "wasn't  feeling  well."  Pollie  Bethson 
had  two  of  these  wrappers  in  ostentatious  manufacture. 
Ivy  thought  it  strange  that  brides-elect,  in  the  midst 
of  their  gay  enthusiasm,  should  think  so  seriously  of 
days  when  they  were  "not  feeling  well."  But  they  al- 
ways did.  It  was  like  the  miser  and  his  "rainy  day" 
that  is  always  so  felicitously  anticipated. 

She  did  not  change  her  demeanor  toward  Jack  Child- 
ers  because  she  was  "engaged,"  and  she  was  thankful 
to  him  because  he  did  not  seem  to  exact  it.  He  might 
have  been  very  much  more  unpleasant ;  and,  if  he  had 
been,  her  course  might  not  have  been  so  easy.  For  she 
could  not  simulate  what  she  did  not  feel.  The  one 
side  of  her  nature  was  distinct  from  the  other,  and  en- 
croachment would  have  been  impossible.  She  could 
not  give  to  Jack  Childers  even  the  faintest  imitation 
of  what  she  lavished  upon  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  and  he 
did  not  ask  it.  In  Central  Park  West  she  was  Ivy 
Hampton ;  in  her  East  Side  environment  she  was  Mrs. 
Compton. 

And  so  Mrs.  Hampton  gradually  abandoned  her  ef- 
forts to  cope  with  the  chill  imperturbability  of  this  be- 
trothal. Occasionally  she  rallied  Jack  upon  his  un- 
lover-like  behavior.  But  Mr.  Childers  was  most  plaus- 
ible. He  had  known  Ivy  for  so  long;  she  was  his 
cousin ;  it  was  impossible  to  turn  on  a  melting  stream  of 
picturesque  enthusiasm  because  they  were  "engaged." 
Jack  and  Ivy  reached  the  same  point,  but  by  different 
paths;  hers  led  through  cynicism  and  a  morbid  dis- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  255 

agreement  with  the  best  verdict  that  the  centuries  have 
given ;  his  rolled  over  easy  and  non-reasoning  indiffer- 
ence and  a  smooth,  unruffled  "liking." 

As  chaperone,  who  might  have  done  so  much,  Mrs. 
Hampton  felt  vaguely  aggrieved.  But  she  slept  health- 
ily after  listening  for  kisses  that  never  were  kissed  and 
for  "airy  nothings"  that  turned  out  to  be  most  prosa- 
ically substantial. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

JcNALLY  —  Silverman  —  Compton  —  Riving- 
ton — Lambwell.  Sallie  knew  the  names  by 
heart.  They  were  tabulated  in  her  mind  like 
the  lines  of  a  double  acrostic;  but  the  puzzle 
was  more  abstruse.  The  time  for  solving  it  had  at  last 
arrived,  and  further  procrastination  of  any  sort  was  no 
longer  feasible. 

A  small  and  frowsy  little  shop  where  the  "ladies" 
of  the  neighborhood  had  their  hair  "waved,"  sham- 
pooed, dyed,  and  bleached,  overlooked  the  apartment 
house  in  which  McNally,  Silverman,  Compton,  Riving- 
ton,  and  Lambwell  wore  out  their  lives.  It  was  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  and  from  the  window  it  was 
possible  to  observe  the  exits  and  entrances  of  the  five 
refined  families.  To  this  little  shop  Miss  Sydenham, 
with  many  misgivings,  repaired,  fully  convinced  that 
she  would  be  able  to  steal  a  march  upon  Detective  Syl- 
vester Jackson,  and  half  inclined  to  surmise  that  Sher- 
lock Holmes  was  a  somewhat  over-rated  person,  and 
that  Dr.  Conan  Doyle  had  cleverly  constructed  a  series 
of  conspicuous  mountains  out  of  a  pusillanimous  little 
mole-hill. 

Sallie  undoubtedly  earned  that  coveted  position  at 
the  window  which  she  assumed  later.  She  was  sham- 
pooed and  singed,  she  was  combed  and  tinted.  They 
"treated"  her  scalp  and  let  loose  upon  it  the  contents 
of  dozens  of  bottles,  all  labelled  with  words  ending  in 
"cide."  She  did  not  rebel.  If  they  had  suggested 
shaving  her  she  would  have  submitted  with  good  grace. 
The  bill  was  a  heavy  one,  and  the  proprietor  was 
charmed  with  a  ladv  who  had  such  infinite  and  undi- 


A  Girl,  Who  Wrote  257 

luted  faith  in  his  most  clap-trap  persuasions  and  de- 
vices. She  bought  perfumes  and  cosmetics,  pencils 
for  her  eyebrows,  "blue"  to  make  veins  in  her  neck, 
tampons  with  which  to  polish  her  fingers,  and  boxes 
of  rouge.  After  which  she  frankly  admitted  that  she 
wished  to  sit  in  a  chair  at  the  window,  all  day  if  neces- 
sary, and  await  some  expected  friends.  She  had  made 
herself  popular,  and  no  objection  was  offered. 

Dreary  hours  passed  and  nothing  happened.  Chil- 
dren appeared  from  the  flats,  and  played  noisily  in  the 
street — tots  that  seemed  to  know  their  bearings.  Sallie 
marvelled  at  the  wonderful  nonchalance  of  the  moth- 
ers who  allowed  these  babies  to  flaunt  their  tiny  enti- 
ties in  the  squalor  of  such  a  neighborhood.  She  sup- 
posed that  these  represented  the  "agonized  mothers" 
who -always  "read"  so  well  in  Owldom's  "stories"  when 
their  children  were  run  over,  or  abducted,  or  mal- 
treated. Then  they  always  "came  out"  so  glowingly 
in  tints  of  warm  maternal  devotion  and  exquisitely 
pictorial  solicitude.  These  "stories"  were  very  pop- 
ular in  journalism,  and  careful  reporters  wrote  them. 
Something  was  always  happening  to  these  children. 
And  no  wonder,  thought  Sallie.  These  mothers  seemed 
to  simply  work  for  headlines  in  the  newspapers.  They 
were  about  as  fit  to  own  children,  as  cows  would  be  to 
nurture  kittens,  or  cats  to  possess  chronometers. 

Sallie  counted  twenty-two  children  that  emerged 
from  the  McNally — Silverman — Compton — Rivington 
— Lamb  well  abode.  And  she  remembered  her  chat 
with  the  janitress.  But  the  Comptons  were  certainly 
unduly  conspicuous,  and  decidedly  out  of  fashion. 
Probably  their  childlessness  was  the  most  ostentatious 
emblem  that  they  could  have  worn. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  dusk  was  settling  its 
comfortable,  concealing  pall  upon  the  hideousness  of 


258  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

everything,  when  Sallie  realized  that  the  eve  of  execu- 
tion had  arrived.  She  saw  the  slow  approach  of  Ivy 
Hampton  in  the  heavy  veil — -voile  d'adultere,  as  they 
call  it  in  France.  Sallie  knew  her  at  once.  She  rec- 
ognized the  slow,  indolent  gait  and  the  lithe,  swaying 
figure.  Miss  Hampton  ploughed  her  way  through  the 
motley  crowd  of  children  who  barred  the  entrance  to 
the  flat,  howling,  shrieking,  singing,  jumping,  and 
making  a  declaration  of  independence  that  was  care- 
fully inculcated  by  parents,  anxious  to  impress  upon 
those  feeble,  dawning  minds  the  weird  fact  that  they 
were  as  good  as  anybody  else — aye,  and  better.  But 
Miss  Hampton  was  not  at  all  disturbed.  She  had  no 
nerves. 

Sallie  still  waited,  watching  Mrs.  Compton's  windows, 
at  which  no  face  appeared.  Shades  were  drawn,  and 
no  sign  of  internal  life  was  made  manifest.  Fully  an- 
other hour  passed  before  she  noticed  the  advent  of  Ar- 
thur Stuyvesant.  It  gave  her  a  pang  to  realize  that 
her  anonymous  letter  had  borne  no  fruit  whatsoever. 
It  had  either  gone  astray,  or  it  had  been  disregarded, 
and  she  felt  that  since  her  interview  with  Mrs.  Stuy- 
vesant, she  had  indeed  been  living  in  a  fool's  paradise 
— albeit  there  was  precious  little  of  the  paradise  that 
she  could  recall.  If  she  had  only  warned  them  per- 
sonally .  .  .  then  her  present  distasteful  mission  would 
not  be  confronting  her  now.  Yet  ...  in  spite  of  all 
.  .  .  they  must  have  absented  themselves  from  their 
rendezvous — they  must  have  abstained — or  would  not 
Detective  Sylvester  Jackson  have  "detected"  them  be- 
fore this?  Chance  had  probably  befriended  her. 
Stuyvesant  had  been  busy  with  the  production  of  the 
new  play,  and  had  found  no  time  for  clandestine  dal- 
liance in  the  purlieus  of  Third  Avenue. 

He  walked  swingingly  and  with  his  head  held  high. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  259 

Evidently  he  had  no  fears.  It  became  more  and  more 
apparent  to  her  that  he  had  never  received  her  warning 
missive.  He  glanced  carelessly  around,  patted  the 
heads  of  the  children,  and  was  serenely  at  his  ease. 
Then  Arthur  Stuyvesant  disappeared  in  the  gloom  of 
the  flat-house  and  became  Mr.  Compton. 

She  thanked  the  accommodating  hairdresser,  prom- 
ised to  call  again  for  her  purchases,  and  left.  Now  that 
the  critical  moment  had  arrived  when  the  "situation" 
must  be  manipulated  with  all  due  force,  her  courage 
seemed  to  evaporate.  She  walked  up  and  down  the 
street,  giving  the  "Comptons"  time  to  establish  them- 
selves, yet  keeping  an  alert  eye  for  the  expected  arrival 
of  the  detective  and  his  recruit  from  Owldom.  She 
wondered  what  reporter  Mr.  Green  would  send  with 
Mr.  Jackson.  Her  greatest  triumph  would  be  if  the 
owl  were  forced  to  return  with  the  dry :  "Nothing.  We 
found  nothing."  Poor,  desperate  Mr.  Green!  The 
thought  surged  joyfully  in  her  breast.  She  had  no 
time  to  lose.  She  must  clear  them  out  .  .  .  eradicate 
the  Comptons  .  .  .  and  give  the  detective  a  chance  to 
add  to  his  diary  a- few  notes  on  a  case  "in  which  I 
failed." 

Courage — courage!  She  braced  herself  up,  and 
told  herself  consoling  things.  In  one  hour  from  now 
it  might  all  be  over.  It  might  really  not  be  so  very 
dreadful.  After  all,  it  was  a  mission  of  mercy  to  which 
they  could  scarcely  object.  Courage — courage ! 

She  crossed  the  street  and  rang  the  electric  bell  above 
the  Compton  name.  Then — the  deed  was  done,  and  it 
was  impossible  to  retract.  She  might,  of  course,  run 
away  in  an  undignified  manner,  and  there  was  still  time 
to  do  that.  But  as  she  stood  there,  a  clicking  indicated 
that  the  front  door  was  open;  she  went  upstairs.  It 
was  a  dark  and  cut-throat  staircase,  down  which  chil- 


260  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

dren  tumbled  all  day  long.  The  banisters  were  cold 
and  damp ;  the  stair  carpets  hung  in  shreds  that  almost 
threw  Sallie  to  the  ground.  At  the  Compton  door  she 
paused  and  knocked.  The  calm,  unruffled  tones  of  Ivy 
Hampton  called  out:  "Who's  there?"  and  a  moment 
later  the  door  was  opened,  and  Miss  Hampton  stood  be- 
fore her,  as  suave  and  unmoved  as  though  she  were 
there  by  the  laws  of  Heaven  and  the  sanction  of  man. 
It  was  dark  in  the  hall,  however,  and  Miss  Hampton 
was  unable  to  distinguish  the  face  of  her  visitor. 

"Let  me  in,"  Sallie  said  quickly.  "Let  me  in  at  once. 
I  have  important  business.  I — I — " 

Miss  Hampton,  superb  in  her  disdain  of  all  fears  and 
suspicions,  moved  aside,  and  Sallie  stepped  in.  Then 
the  door  was  closed,  and  the  Comptons  and  their  in- 
terior stood  revealed  before  her.  She  occupied  the 
few  seconds  that  were  necessary  for  the  restoration  of 
equilibrium,  mental  and  physical,  in  a  quick  survey  of 
the  scene.  Arthur  and  Ivy  were  dining  at  a  tiny  table 
in  the  centre  of  the  room.  He  wore  a  smoking- jacket 
and  slippers,  completely  "at  home ;"  she  trained  a  thin, 
white  peignoir,  scarcely  fastened,  and  displaying  her 
bust  and  arms.  Sallie  was  amazed  at  the  striking  met- 
amorphosis from  the  gray  Puritan  she  had  seen  at  the 
owls'  reception  to  this  languorous  cocotte,  with  all  the 
allurements  and  mannerisms  of  vice.  An  alcove 
opened  from  the  room  in  which  they  sat — the  "parlor" 
— and  it  was  fitted  up — as  is  usual  in  the  cheap  New 
York  flat-house — as  a  bedroom.  The  picture  was  over- 
whelming, and  Sallie  stood  and  gazed  at  the  reckless 
couple  on  the  very  verge  of  exposure,  on  the  utter  brink 
of  being  rudely  photographed  for  the  inspection  of 
the  world.  This  was  the  future  Mrs.  Jack  Childers, 
and  the  idea  filled  her  with  a  savage  vindictiveness. 

Arthur  Stuyvesant  rose  as  he  saw  her,  folded  his 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  261 

arms  and  grew  a  shade  paler.  Miss  Hampton  simply 
resumed  her  seat  at  the  table,  schooled  against  all  out- 
ward expression  of  emotion.  Sallie  remained  by  the 
door,  her  face  crimson  with  excitement,  unable  to 
speak,  unable  to  move,  as  all  the  emotions  tore  at  her, 
and  robbed  her  of  her  projected  words. 

A  malignant  expression  crept  into  the  actor's  face. 
The  terribly  scathing  article  which  this  woman  had 
just  printed  about  his  latest  venture,  rankled  in  his 
breast  like  a  knife  in  an  open  sore.  And  he  recalled 
her  threatening  words  on  Owldom's  balcony — words 
that  had  since,  in  the  general  security  of  things,  been 
forgotten.  "If  you  don't  play  square,"  she  had  said, 
"if  you  try  and  foist  your  precious  theatrical  person- 
ality upon  a  girl  like  Miss  Hampton — she  is  the  cousin 
of  my  managing  editor,  Mr.  Jack  Childers,  if  you 
please — I'll  roast  you  until  you  are  the  laughing  stock 
of  the  town.  I'll  ridicule  you,  pull  you  to  pieces,  show 
you  up,  dissect  you,  until  you  will  wish  that  you  had 
never  been  born.  I  can  do  it,  you  know.  I'm  not 
malicious — in  print — but  I  shall  take  particular  delight 
in  doing  something  in  that  direction  for  your  own  es- 
pecial benefit.  Go  it — if  you  like — with  your  matinee 
girls,  but  leave  Miss  Hampton  out  of  it." 

He  heard  the  words  as  clearly  now,  as  though  she 
had  re-uttered  them,  and  as  he  saw  her  standing  there 
like  a  Nemesis  in  make-up,  he  began  to  believe  that  this 
visit  was  a  fateful  one.  This  devilish  girl  boded  him 
no  good.  A  second  later,  and  the  malignancy  of  his 
look  was  replaced  by  a  craven  fear,  a  poltroonly  mis- 
giving that  something  ruinous — he  did  not  quite  know 
what — was  about  to  happen.  He  looked  at  Ivy,  cool 
as  a  summer  morning,  the  white  tints  of  her  flesh 
gleaming  through  her  laces  and  needlework. 

"Well,  Miss  Sydenham  ?"  he  said  at  last,  with  an  at- 
tempt at  defiance.  And  he  waited. 


262  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Sallie,  impressed  feverishly  by  the  necessity  for  im- 
mediate action,  was  still  too  bewildered  to  find  coherent 
utterance.  If  the  detective  discovered  them  like  this — 
and  he  might  be  coming  along  the  street  at  this  very 
moment — all  would  indeed  be  lost,  and  nothing  could 
possibly  palliate  the  crude,  unmistakable  story. 

"I  wrote  you,"  she  said,  almost  tumbling  over  her 
words,  "I  wrote  you  some  time  ago.  I  warned  you. 
I  told  you  not  to  come  here,  that  you  were  watched, 
that  you  would  be  discovered,  and  that  you  were  in 
danger.  I  wrote  you.  Why  are  you  here  ?" 

"You  wrote  me?"  he  cried.  "You  warned  me?  It 
is  a  lie.  I  received  no  letter.  You  know  it  This  is 
a  conspiracy — this  is  an  outrage — this — " 

"Stay,"  interposed  Miss  Hampton,  in  her  cool,  im- 
perturbable voice.  "If  this — er — Miss  Sydenham,  I 
believe — refers  to  an  anonymous  letter  that  reached 
here  some  time  ago,  she  is  right.  I  received  it, 
opened  it,  read  it,  threw  it  away,  and — would  do  the 
same  again." 

She  smiled  contemptuously,  disciplined  completely 
in  the  school  that  had  seemed  so  hard  at  first.  She 
had  no  fear,  and  the  abjection  of  Mr.  Stuyvesant  mere- 
ly amused  her.  As  for  the  crimson-faced  woman  at 
the  door  in  the  garb  of  a  saltimbanque ',  she  regarded 
her  as  a  cheap  figure  in  a  melodrama. 

"You  tore  up  a  letter  addressed  to  me?"  he  asked 
fractiously,  as  the  possibilities  loomed  up  nakedly  be- 
fore him.  "That  you  surely  had  no  right  to  do.  It 
was  a  great — indiscretion." 

He  was  going  to  say  impertinence,  but  he  could  not 
bring  himself  to  do  so.  He  was  afraid  of  Ivy  Hamp- 
ton. Her  progress  in  the  iniquitous  school  over  which 
he  had  presided  as  principal,  had  been  so  rapid  that  she 
had  swept  past  him.  The  slight  compunction  that  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  263 

had  felt  at  the  beginning  of  the  dcgringolade,  had  van- 
ished, and  Miss  Hampton  had  no  qualms,  no  self- 
reproaches,  no  distrust,  no  embarrassment.  She  had 
left  her  lover  in  the  background,  and  was  imperiously 
Indifferent  to  his  vague  scruples. 

"An  anonymous  letter,"  said  Miss  Hampton,  icily, 
with  her  eyes  on  Sallie,  "is  the  work  of  a  coward,  who 
for  some  reason  or  other — and  generally  the  other — is 
afraid  of  a  signature.  I  thought  it  best  not  to  worry 
you,  Arthur,  as  I  know  you  have  an  objection  to  that 
sort  of  thing.  I  attached  no  importance  to  the  mon- 
grel note ;  and  since  it  was  Miss  Sydenham  who  wrote 
it — -well,  as  she  is  here,  perhaps  she  will  explain." 

Sallie  had  completely  recovered  her  self-assurance 
and  felt  primed  for  the  work  on  hand.  Yet  she  was 
still  amazed  at  the  aplomb  of  these  two,  even  though 
in  the  face  of  the  actor  there  were  rudimentary  traces 
of  shame.  To  be  detected  like  this  by  a  girl,  by  one 
who  wielded  a  potent  pen  in  the  service  of  a  powerful 
newspaper,  was  surely  infamous  enough.  A  certain 
callousness,  however,  came  to  his  rescue,  and  he  was 
able  to  brazen  it  out.  But  never — Sallie  told  herself 
— amid  all  the  fictitious  types  through  which  she  had 
roamed,  had  she  encountered  such  an  utter  disregard 
of  the  conventions  as  Ivy  Hampton  manifested.  After 
all,  she  was  a  girl  of  education,  reared  amidst  refin- 
ing influences,  well-born,  and  with  a  certain  position. 
Yet  not  an  eyelash  quivered  as  she  stood  there  in  her 
spectacular  undress,  confronted  by  the  outer  world  in 
the  shape  of  a  girl.  Sallie  wondered  whether  it  was 
natural  depravity  or  a  lack  of  the  instincts  of  morality ; 
but  she  was  unable  to  find  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the 
self-imposed  question. 

She  briefly  stated  her  case,  and  made  it  sound  archly 
plausible.  It  was  very  simple,  and  she  was  not  obliged 


264  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

to  draw  upon  her  imagination  to  any  very  formidable 
extent.  The  fact  that  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  had  become  fa- 
miliar with  the  latest  infidelity  on  the  part  of  her  hus- 
band (Sallie  emphasized  viciously  the  word  "latest;" 
Miss  Hampton  winced  at  it;  Mr.  Stuyvesant  glow- 
ered) had  been  told  to  Mr.  Green  by  an  ex-reporter. 
The  ex-reporter  was  unable  to  state  the  name  of  the 
woman  in  the  case — the  latest  woman  (again  Sallie  ma- 
levolently accentuated  the  word).  Mrs.  Stuyvesant 
had  engaged  private  detective  Sylvester  Jackson,  and 
Miss  Sydenham  had  been  assigned  by  the  city  editor 
to  work  up  the  story.  And  Sallie,  her  suspicions  hav- 
ing been  aroused  at  the  reception  in  Newspaper  Row, 
had  scented  the  truth.  Just  then  the  news  of  Miss 
Hampton's  engagement  to  Jack  Childers  had  been  an- 
nounced. In  order  to  spare  him  a  cruel  blow  and  avert 
a  scandal,  she  had  undertaken  to  warn  Mr.  Stuyvesant. 
She  was  here  to  do  so  now,  but  there  was  no  time  to  be 
lost.  Detection  was,  perhaps,  a  question  of  minutes. 

As  he  listened  to  her,  Arthur  Stuyvesant  again  grew 
limp  with  fear.  His  knees  shook ;  the  subtleties  of  the 
case  escaped  him.  He  was  even  inclined  to  regard 
Sallie  as  a  sort  of  disinterested  benefactress.  She  was 
doing  a  noble  deed  for  his  sake.  He  had  entirely  mis- 
judged her.  And  a  wave  of  irrepressible  coxcombry 
swept  through  his  mind.  Perhaps,  after  all,  she  was 
not  utterly  indifferent  to  his  personality.  She  might 
be — and  probably  was — interested  in  him.  It  was  a 
comforting  thought,  and  in  this  moment  of  quaking 
apprehension,  it  possessed  more  than  mere  soothing 
qualities. 

"It  was  good  of  you,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said.  "I 
regret  that  I  did  not  get  the  letter.  As  you  say,  there 
is  no  time  to  be  lost.  This  is  certainly  a  most  distress- 
ing dilemma,  and  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  clear 
out.  ,  ." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  265 

"Miss  Sydenham  is  probably  alarming  us  unneces- 
sarily," Miss  Hampton  drawled,  "or  alarming  you ;  for 
I  confess  that  the  situation  does  not  appeal  to  me.  May 
I  ask,  Miss  Sydenham,  why  the  affairs  of  Mr.  Childers 
are  so  vital  to  you  ?"  Then,  with  an  insolence  that  was 
almost  sublime,  she  added:  "Is  it  possible  that  daily 
intercourse  in  a  newspaper  office  has  given  you  a  more 
than  professional  interest  in  my  cousin?  If  so,  I  will 
withdraw.  As  you  may  imagine,  I  can  do  so  without 
any  heartache.  I  am  not  in  love  with  your  managing 
editor." 

Sallie  felt  a  dead  weight  at  her  heart.  She  would 
have  liked  to  do  physical  violence  to  this  girl,  who  was 
so  astonishingly  devoid  of  even  the  feminine  instincts 
of  modesty  and  shame. 

"My  sentiments  toward  Mr.  Childers  need  not  con- 
cern you,"  she  said.  "I  am  quite  aware  that  you  would 
not  understand  them.  And  please  try  to  believe  that 
I  am  actuated  by  no  desire  to  save  you  personally  from 
the  results  of  your — shall  we  say — impropriety?  Mud 
is  your  destination,  and  to  mud  you  will  undoubtedly 
go.  It  is  apparently  your  natural  preference.  But 
Mr.  Stuyvesant,  for  his  own  sake,  will  assuredly  save 
the  situation." 

There  was  a  trace  of  "Kilkenny  cat"  in  this  ...  it 
sounded  rather  suspiciously  like  Billingsgate  .  .  .  but 
Sallie  could  not  restrain  herself.  She  was  cruelly  af- 
fronted by  Miss  Hampton's  oblique  outlook.  Mr.  Stuy- 
vesant for  a  moment  felt  that  he  was  in  duty  bound  to 
resent  this  language,  but  .  .  .  there  was  no  time  for 
recrimination.  Miss  Hampton  herself  glanced  towards 
her  lover  for  the  championship  of  her  cause,  a  vindic- 
tive gleam  in  her  gray,  pool-like  eyes,  that  had  some- 
how lost  their  opal  fires.  Her  impulse  was  to  turn 
Miss  Sydenham  out,  and  to  calmly  await  developments 


266  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

— the  coming  of  which  were  powerless  to  affright  her. 
The  idea  of  being  labelled  in  dual  iniquity  with  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  caused  her  no  dismay.  It  would  be  a  nine- 
days'  sensation,  and  she  felt  amply  strong  enough  to 
live  through  it.  Nothing  ever  lasted  more  than  nine 
days.  A  big  fire  or  a  murder  would  oust  her  "affair" 
from  the  public  mind ;  and  there  were  always  big  fires 
and  murders. 

"In  the  meantime,  Ivy,"  he  said,  "you  must  go,  and 
you  must  not  return  here.  We  can  discuss  matters 
later.  You  must  go  now — this  very  moment.  Had 
it  not  been  for  sheer,  blind  luck — that  kept  me  away 
from  these  rooms  owing  to  my  theatrical  engagements 
— we  should  have  been  discovered  long  before  this. 
Never  mind  Miss  Sydenham's  motives,  Ivy.  Put  on 
your  things  and  .  .  .  go.  Go  at  once.  I  will  pack 
up  a  few  belongings,  pay  my  rent  and  end  it  all.  Go, 
Ivy,  please  .  .  .  please  go,  for  my  sake." 

She  stood  there  like  a  statue,  watching  his  gusty  fear 
and  listening  to  his  hurried  words.  Then  she  slowly 
moved  to  the  alcove  room,  and  began  to  obey  him. 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "For  your  sake  I  will  go. 
We  can  find  another  place." 

"Hurry,  Mr.  Stuyvesant,"  said  Sallie,  feverishly,  for 
the  time  had  passed  quickly  and  the  peril  became  mo- 
mentarily more  acute.  "I  will  help  you  to  pack.  Only 
— only — get — this — this  woman  out." 

Ivy  heard  her  words,  and  for  a  moment  a  fear  as- 
sailed her.  She  remembered  seeing  Sallie  with  her  lover 
on  the  night  of  Owldom's  reception,  and  the  strange 
sensation  that  it  had  given  her.  Suppose  that  this  was 
all  a  ruse  on  the  part  of  a  girl  who  did  not  look  re- 
spectable, and  who,  therefore,  could  not  be  respectable, 
to  fasten  her  tentacles  upon  Arthur?  Yet  it  was  ab- 
surd. She  knew  full  \vell  that  Miss  Sydenham  could 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  267 

not  be  Arthur's  style.  She  was  about  to  hint  at  her 
fear,  and  to  make  sarcastic  allusions  to  the  recklessness 
of  leaving  them  together  even  for  a  few  minutes;  but 
she  decided  that  even  a  hint  would  be  too  monstrous. 
She  looked  at  the  rowdily  dressed  girl,  with  scarcely  a 
vestige  of  good  looks  left,  and  .  .  .  she  felt  quite  safe. 
So  she  simply  said :  "You  will  hurry,  Arthur,  and  leave 
as  soon  as  you  can?" 

And  Sallie  understood.  She  could  not  repress  a  fee- 
ble shot  at  them  both,  though  it  was  wanting  in  dig- 
nity, and  seemed  to  place  her  on  their  repulsive  level. 
"He  will  be  intact,  Mrs.  Compton,v  she  said,  accenting 
the  alias.  "You  need  not  be  afraid.  If  I  went  in  for 
actors,  I  should  choose  those  who  have  no  ties.  I  don't 
believe  in  going  thirds  with  a  wife  and  child.  I  want 
all  or  nothing.  You  are  not  as  greedy,  I  perceive.  Go 
ahead,  Mrs.  Compton.  I  will  help  Mr.  Compton  to 
get  out  as  quickly  as  he  can.  Hurry  up,  little  Comp- 
ton, and  don't  mind  me." 

It  did  her  good  to  utter  these  swiftly  ridiculous 
words,  beneath  which  she  could  see  that  he  writhed. 
Miss  Hampton  was  unmoved.  She  was  calmly  don- 
ning her  every-day  clothes.  She  removed  the  peignoir 
and  stood  before  them  bare-necked  and  bare-armed, 
without  the  slightest  appreciation  of  the  gross  indeli- 
cacy of  the  proceeding.  Sallie,  who  prided  herself 
upon  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  Bohemianism  and  who 
loved  to  say,  and  often  said :  "I'm  no  prude,"  experi- 
enced a  thick  discomfort  as  she  watched  Miss  Hamp- 
ton buttoning  her  dress,  fastening  her  shoes,  and  omit- 
ting no  details.  Mr.  Stuyvesant,  in  the  meantime,  was 
unearthing  trunks,  boxes,  dress-suit  cases,  and  hastily 
arranging  for  the  finality. 

"Good-bye,"  said  Ivy,  draping  the  dark  veil  over  her 
face.  "After  all,  I  was  due  home  at  this  time.  Mamma 


268  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

is  dining  out — as  usual — but  she  promised  to  be  back 
earlier.  So,  even  if  Miss  Sydenham  had  not  burst  upon 
us  like  a  ray  of  salvation,  I  could  not  have  stayed  much 
longer.  Good-bye,  Arthur.  Kiss  me.  You'll  hear 
from  me  to-morrow.  I  shall  not  be  idle.  Adieu." 

He  would  gladly  have  been  spared  the  ill-ease  of  kiss- 
ing her  before  Sallie  Sydenham.  He  flushed,  and  tried 
to  avoid  it.  But  Miss  Hampton  was  perfectly  indiffer- 
ent to  the  ineffectiveness  of  public  embrace.  Had  there 
been  a  seething  mob  in  the  room  she  would  not  have 
been  balked  of  her  kiss.  Her  outlook  was  warped; 
and  if  he,  by  injudicious  cynicism  and  the  argument  of 
fallacy,  had  helped  to  warp  it,  he  must  pay  the  penalty 
now.  He  could  not  conceal  his  chagrin,  as  he  kissed 
her.  It  was  so  evident  that  Sallie,  in  the  tumult  of  this 
disgraceful  night,  was  obliged  to  smile.  Never  had 
kiss  been  more  unlover-like.  It  was  a  sort  of  sweet  re- 
venge to  her.  She  was  glad  that  Ivy  made  a  fool  of 
him;  she  rejoiced  to  see  that  he  hated  being  made  a 
fool  of.  And  what  a  fool  he  looked !  She  laughed 
aloud — carefully,  deliberately,  savoring  the  luxury  of 
pardonable  spite. 

Miss  Hampton  glanced  at  the  array  of  trunks,  cases, 
baskets,  and  .  .  .  hated  to  go. 

"Be  careful  how  you  pack  the  ornaments,"  she  said, 
in  soft  tones.  "I  shall  be  furious  if  you  break  those 
Cupids,  Arthur.  They  are  the  only  decent  things  we 
have  in  this  hole.  Jack  gave  them  to  me  for  my  birth- 
day. He  asked  me  the  other  day  where  they  were. 
Of  course,  I  couldn't  tell  him,  but  I  said  that  they  were 
quite  safe.  So  do  be  careful.  Jack  would  be  so  angry 
if  anything  happened  to  them." 

She  glanced  with  amused  eyes  at  Miss  Sydenham 
and  enjoyed  the  idea  of  shocking  her.  And  how  mar- 
vellous it  was  that  Miss  Sydenham  could  be  shocked ! 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  269 

Ivy  found  it  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  this  girl 
of  Tenderloin  aspect  was,  after  all,  convention-proof. 
It  seemed  too  ludicrous.  "Les  apparences  sont  trom- 
peuses,"  a  line  of  her  early  French  days,  occurred  to 
her.  They  were  indeed.  If  this  newspaper  woman 
were  so  intensely  respectable,  why  was  she  such  a 
sight  ?  Why  did  she  write  such  boldly  suggestive  arti- 
cles ?  Miss  Hampton,  who  had  always  read  Miss  Syd- 
enham's  work — in  spite  of  Mrs.  Hampton — had  surely 
detected  epigrams,  witty  remarks,  novel  view-points, 
all  called  forth  by  illicit  plays,  and  situations  fifty  times 
worse  than  the  simple  reality  of  a  girl,  and  a  clandes- 
tine lover. 

She  left  them,  and  they  heard  her  slowly  descending 
the  stairs.  She  returned  a  moment  later,  with  pro- 
voking insistence,  merely  to  say  that  her  slippers  were 
under  the  bed  and  not  to  forget  them.  Then  she  was 
gone  in  reality,  and  they  heard  the  outside  door  close. 

Left  alone  with  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  Sallie  felt  a  sen- 
sation of  relief  that  was  simply  luxurious.  The  dan- 
ger had  been  effectively  averted.  Ivy  had  been  ousted, 
before  detective  Sylvester  Jackson  had  shown  up.  The 
situation  was  saved;  the  rendezvous  was  broken  up; 
nothing  could  happen.  The  removal  of  the  terrific 
strain  to  which  she  had  been  subjected,  was  so  grateful 
that  the  tears  rushed  to  her  eyes  and  her  hands  trem- 
bled. She  felt  insanely  thankful  to  Arthur  Stuyvesant 
for  promptness  of  action,  even  though  she  completely 
realized  that  he  acted  neither  for  her  sake,  nor  for  that 
of  Mr.  Childers,  nor  for  the  safety  of  Ivy  Hampton, 
but  solely,  exclusively,  unremittingly  for  his  own.  The 
most  unyielding  selfishness — egotism,  in  its  most  ran- 
cid and  pernicious  form — had  actuated  him.  He  was, 
in  reality,  a  coward,  a  traitor,  and  a  fool.  Still,  she 
felt  grateful  to  him,  for  her  work  had  been  successfully 


270  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

accomplished.  Had  he  been  braver,  more  defiant,  more 
genuinely  devoted  to  the  shameless  woman  who  had 
just  left,  she  would  still  have  been  here  in  the  midst  of 
the  danger. 

Sallie  sat  quivering.  There  was  no  need  for  her  to 
remain  a  moment  longer,  but  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  she  craved 
to  see  them  both  safely  away.  Miss  Hampton  might 
return  ...  it  was  just  the  sort  of  thing  she  would  do 
...  in  order  to  prove  her  already  sufficiently  proven 
disdain  for  the  conventions  and  the  proprieties.  And 
if  she  came  back,  she  might  prevail  upon  this  shaken 
thing  called  man  to  trust  to  chance.  Such  a  possibil- 
ity, far  fetched  though  it  assuredly  was,  caused  Sallie 
to  sit  there,  and  to  gather  up  her  forces  to  help  him  in 
his  demolition  of  the  apartment. 

Her  strength  returned  to  her,  and  her  lightness  of 
heart  with  it.  It  had  all  been  very  trying,  but  she  had 
much  to  be  thankful  for.  She  took  a  few  cheap  pic- 
tures from  the  wall  and  handed  them  to  him.  She  re- 
moved half  a  dozen  photographs  from  the  mantel- 
piece. It  gave  her  a  shock  to  find  among  the  staring 
collection  a  picture  of  Jack  Childers.  This  proved  to 
her  the  completion  of  Miss  Hampton's  moral  disinte- 
gration. She  not  only  ruthlessly  betrayed  her  fiance, 
but  she  flaunted  his  portrait  where  she  could  look  upon 
it  in  her  communion  with  the  actor.  It  was  the  acme 
of  perfidy,  the  very  ecstasy  of  infamy. 

On  the  picture  she  read  in  Jack's  handwriting:  "Is 
it  not  very  handsome?"  Poor  Jack!  Little  had  he 
imagined  the  uses  to  which  his  portrait  would  be  put. 
As  he  wrote  those  foolish,  lightly  penned  words,  it  had 
not  occurred  to  him  to  invest  them  with  an  ironical  sub- 
tlety. A  temptation  to  take  the  portrait  and  to  keep 
it,  assailed  her,  but  she  resisted  it.  It  was  not  hers, 
.  .  she  did  not  want  it.  It  had  been  given  to 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  271 

this  woman,  and  it  should  stay  with  her.  Perhaps  later 
on,  when  the  day  of  remorse  came  (for  Sallie  was  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  believe  that  days  of  remorse  al- 
ways came  in  cases  like  these;  she  had  read  that  they 
did),  Miss  Hampton  would  writhe  at  this  remem- 
brance of  days  that  were  easier  and  brighter.  When 
she  had  trampled  herself  in  the  mud  (mud  was  Miss 
Sydenham's  invariable  synonym  for  degradation),  she 
would  look  at  this  bland,  smiling  picture  with  the  friv- 
olous inscription,  and  curse  herself. 

The  dismantlement  of  the  room  was  completing  itself 
swiftly.  She  gave  her  assistance  to  Mr.  Stuyvesant, 
who,  now  that  Miss  Hampton  had  gone,  seemed  unduly 
hurried.  He  had  suggested  to  Sallie  the  advisability 
of  departing.  He  could  get  along  very  well  alone, 
thanks  .  .  .  there  was  really  no  need  for  her  to  re- 
main ...  it  was  extremely  kind  of  her.  She  did  not 
address  him,  as  her  sense  of  repulsion,  in  spite  of  all, 
was  too  great.  She  regarded  him  as  though  he  were  a 
reptile  in  a  zoological  garden.  His  antics,  his  move- 
ments, his  haste,  his  excitement  .  .  .  she  saw  them  all, 
as  though  she  were  a  spectator  at  a  public  performance. 
He  was  one  of  the  finest  parodies  on  man  that  she  had 
ever  noticed.  Still,  the  situation  was  saved.  That 
fact  seemed  to  buzz  in  her  ears.  It  was  a  splendid 
achievement.  At  least  half  an  hour  had  passed  since 
Miss  Hampton  had  left.  She  was  now  at  home  in  all 
her  beautiful  arch  girlhood,  with  the  silver-gold  hair 
knotted  at  the  nape  of  her  neck.  And  she  was  talking 
ingenuously  to  Mrs.  Hampton  and  telling  pretty  stories 
of  the  girl-friends  she  had  visited,  and  the  "very  pleas- 
ant afternoon"  she  had  spent.  And  Mrs.  Hampton 
was  quite  satisfied.  Sallie  could  almost  see  the  silly  old 
dame  with  the  gold-rimmed  lorgnettes  aping  the  man- 
nerisms of  the  ultra-exclusive.  And  through  the  gold 


272  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

lorgnettes  she  saw  nothing  .  .  .  absolutely  nothing. 
Gold  lorgnettes  were  inadequate  to  the  task  of  focus- 
ing the  truth.  They  could  not  see  into  the  heart  of 
the  turgid  young  woman  with  the  silver-gold  hair. 
Perhaps  gold  lorgnettes  emitting  X-rays  would  have 
been  equally  incompetent  to  penetrate  the  opacity  of 
Ivy  Hampton. 

She  tossed  the  varied  articles  to  Arthur  Stuyvesant, 
and  watched  him  idly  as  he  deposited  them  in  the  open 
receptacles.  The  task  was  nearly  finished.  In  ten 
minutes  the  home  of  the  Comptons  would  be  a  shell 
...  an  empty  husk.  She  remembered  Ivy  Hamp- 
ton's slippers,  and  stooped  to  gather  them  up.  They 
were  red,  embroidered  in  heavy  gold,  pointed,  thin, 
pretty.  She  handed  them  to  him.  .  .  . 

At  that  moment  an  insufferable  odor  of  escaping  gas 
reached  her  nostrils.  It  was  so  strong,  so  unmistak- 
able, that  it  caused  her  to  gasp.  Arthur  Stuyvesant 
had  become  aware  of  the  same  thing.  Undoubtedly 
there  was  a  leak  somewhere.  Without  speaking,  they 
both  tried  the  gas-brackets,  to  see  if,  by  some  mistake, 
they  had  been  turned  on.  Nobody  had  tampered  with 
the  gas  ...  it  had  not  been  touched.  Whence  came 
the  pungent  odor,  and  why  had  it  so  suddenly  forced 
itself  upon  them?  Sallie  grew  restive.  She  had  no 
desire  to  be  found  here — in  this  apartment,  pictur- 
esquely suffocated  with  Mr.  Stuyvesant.  It  would  be 
too  horrible — not  the  suffocation,  but  the  juxtaposition 
with  the  actor.  A  nauseating  idea  suddenly  seized  her. 
She  took  her  hat  from  the  peg  upon  which  she  had 
hung  it,  and  .  .  . 

She  heard  voices  outside — evidently  discussing  gas. 
There  was  a  murmur,  a  whisper,  a  scarcely  perceptible 
brou-haha.  Then  somebody  knocked  at  the  door,  loud- 
ly, boldly,  and  cried :  "Open  at  once.  There  is  an  es- 
cape of  gas." 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  273 


Sallie  stood  in  the  alcove,  by  the  Wfl,  from  which  she 
had  just  rescued  Miss  Hampton's  red-gold  slippers. 
Arthur  Stuyvesant  went  to  the  door  and  threw  it  open. 
An  instant  later  a  well-dressed,  tan-gloved  man  entered. 
He  walked  up  to  the  nearest  gas-bracket  and  made  a 
feint  of  testing  it.  Then  he  looked  at  the  room,  de- 
voured Miss  Sydenham  with  his  eyes,  as  though  not  a 
detail  of  her  dress,  not  a  line  of  her  form,  not  a 
feature  of  her  face  should  escape  him.  Sallie  stood 
paralyzed  with  astonishment.  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  red 
to  the  roots  of  the  hair,  understood. 

Miss  Sydenham  was  not  left  long  in  perplexity.  The 
well-dressed,  tan-gloved  man  was  followed  by  a  timid, 
reluctant  youth,  in  whom  Sallie  immediately  recog- 
nized little  Robinson,  the  reporter. 

"It's  all  right,  Robinson,"  said  the  man.  "Nothing 
more."  Then,  with  ironical  politeness  :  "Thank  you, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Compton.  I  find  that  the  gas  was  escap- 
ing in  the  hall  only.  I  have  just  turned  it  off.  A 
thousand  pardons  for  disturbing  you." 

Little  Robinson,  shaking  from  his  boots  upward, 
white,  distraught,  amazed,  stood  staring  at  Sallie  Syd- 
enham as  she  was  revealed  in  the  dismantled  room, 
smiling  at  him — yes,  positively  smiling  at  him.  He 
sat  down  and  passed  his  hand  over  his  eyes.  Detective 
Sylvester  Jackson,  always  ineffably  busy,  had  left.  Lit- 
tle Robinson  had  made  one  effort  to  detain  him — to  say 
something — anything — but  he  felt  incoherent.  The 
detective,  smiling  at  this  very  apparent  instance  of  re- 
portorial  human  weakness,  had  merely  patted  him  in- 
dulgently on  the  shoulder.  He  had  other  fish  to  fry. 
He  had  already  popped  the  "mysterious  veiled  lady" 
into  a  very  wide-open  saucepan. 

"You!"  cried  little  Robinson  at  last,  his  loyal  heart 
wrung.  "You,  Miss  Sydenham.  I  don't  believe  it. 
It  isn't  true.  Tell  me — say  it  isn't  true." 


274  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"But  it  is,  Robinson,"  Sallie  replied  energetically. 
"You  came  here  with  the  worthy  Mr.  Jackson  to  find 
Mr.  Arthur  Stuyvesant's  accomplice.  And,  well — you 
can't  find  her,  dear  boy,  can  you?  The  truth  is  that 
there  was  no  accomplice.  It  was  a  pretty  story,  but  it 
wasn't  true,  was  it,  Mr.  Stuyvesant?" 

She  did  not  understand.  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  hard 
as  his  hide  was,  realized  that  she  did  not  understand. 
In  her  fitful  joy  at  the  certainty  that  Jack  Childers' 
cousin  was  far  from  the  scene  of  "detectiving"  she 
could  grasp  nothing  else.  An  honest  sentiment  of  gen- 
uine pity  came  into  his  heart. 

"Of  course  it  wasn't  true,"  he  said  boisterously. 
"There  was  nobody  here,  and  you  came  just  to — just 
to  interview  me  for  the  .  .  .  paper." 

Little  Robinson  sat  there  and  moaned :  "It  is  hate- 
ful. It  is  detestable."  Then,  "What  shall  I  say,  Miss 
Sydenham  ?  Help  me  out." 

She  laughed  at  him.  Could  it  be  that  he  was  agi- 
tated merely  because  he  was  balked  of  his  prey?  For 
he  surely  was  balked.  He  had  accompanied  the  de- 
tective, certain  of  discovering  the  identity  of  the  wo- 
man of  mystery.  And  lo,  there  was  no  mystery! 
There  was,  moreover,  no  woman.  It  was  really  rather 
amusing. 

"You  can  say  you  found  me,"  she  cried  hilariously. 
"Poor  old  Green  will  fall  off  his  chair  with  mortifica- 
tion. It  is  a  pity  that  we  can't  oblige  him.  Perhaps 
he  will  even  try  to  picture  me  .  .  .  as — the — veiled 
lady." 

Her  own  words  awoke  her.  She  saw  the  situation 
for  the  first  time.  The  white,  drawn  face  of  little  Rob- 
inson gave  her  a  shock.  Yes,  she  quite  understood 
.  .  .  but  it  was  too  absurd  .  .  .  too  preposterously 
grotesque  .  .  .  too  overdrawn. 

The  three  of  them  sat  there  staring  at  one  another. 


n 


CHAPTER   XX. 

HE  devotion  of  a  very  young  man  to  a  woman 
somewhat  his  senior  is  not  unusual,  and  it  is 
not  lacking  in  a  certain  crude  and  picturesque 
beauty.  Its  predominant  flavor  is  chivalry, 
rather  than  mere  physical  attraction,  though  perhaps 
it  is  never  wholly  platonic.  The  woman  generally  re- 
sponds with  some  awakened  instinct  of  maternity. 
Little  Robinson's  attachment  to  Sallie  Sydenham  be- 
longed to  this  order  of  affection.  He  admired  her  sin- 
cerely in  his  earnest,  boyish  fashion.  Many  a  time 
had  he  defended  her  against  the  crass  insinuations  of 
Owldom  and  checked  the  insensate  reportorial  jests  of 
his  colleagues.  He  had  fought  battles  for  her  unasked, 
and,  in  diffident  knighthood,  had  pledged  himself  to 
her  support.  He  did  not  attempt  to  fathom  the  whim- 
sicalities of  her  character,  nor  to  argue  pro  and  con 
with  respect  to  her  unconventional  behavior.  He  sim- 
ply accepted  it.  It  was ;  it  existed.  His  not  to  reason 
why. 

Little  Robinson  was  very  young.  Had  he  lived  a 
century  earlier  he  would  have  done  interesting  things 
in  an  interesting  way.  In  Owldom  he  was  unhappy. 
The  vulgarity  of  his  daily  tasks  offended  his  simple, 
chivalrous  nature.  Perpetual  contact  with  the  doings 
of  unlovely  people,  and  the  happenings  in  their  tight- 
wedged  world,  went  against  his  grain.  He  could  not 
accustom  himself  to  the  vagaries  of  Newspaper  Row, 
and,  although  he  had  long  ago  made  up  his  mind  to  do 
the  best  he  could,  it  was  a  feeble  best,  with  little  prom- 
ise in  its  wake. 

The  shock  of  this  astounding  denouement  to  the 


276  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

banal  history  of  adultery  that  Mr.  Green  had  yum- 
yummed  as  a  tit-bit  of  a  particularly  choice  description 
benumbed  his  energies.  For  a  time  he  was  unable  to 
think.  Detective  Sylvester  Jackson  had  focused  the 
picture  of  the  woman  discovered  with  Arthur  Stuyve- 
sant  in  his  mind's  eye,  blissfully  convinced  that  he  could 
"identify  her  in  court"  if  necessary,  and  he  had  gone. 
As  the  power  to  think  returned  to  him,  little  Robinson 
wondered  if,  in  his  distress,  he  had  revealed  her  name. 
He  could  not  remember;  he  rather  thought  that  he 
had.  He  was  ignorant  of  the  intricacies  of  divorce 
subtleties,  and  had  no  knowledge  of  the  methods  that 
they  followed. 

Arthur  Stuyvesant  was  the  first  to  puncture  the 
thick,  gray,  resilient  silence.  Although  the  role  played 
by  Miss  Sydenham  was  unintelligible  to  him,  he 
grasped  the  danger  of  his  position.  He  disliked  the 
woman  who  had  been  a  stumbling  block  in  his  way  for 
so  long,  but  he  had  no  desire  to  see  her  branded  in  this 
manner.  He  dimly  reasoned  that  the  "paper"  might 
"do  something"  to  prevent  publicity,  now  that  one  of  its 
most  admired  contributors  was  apparently  involved. 
He  felt  safe ;  still,  selfish  and  utterly  personal  though 
he  was,  he  realized  that  the  blithe  injustice  of  "appear- 
ances" in  this  case  was  too  flagrant. 

"Of  course  you  will  understand,"  he  said,  "and  your 
city  editor  will  understand,  that  Miss  Sydenham's  pres- 
ence here  was  purely  accidental.  She  will  explain  it. 
You  look  disturbed.  Pray  consider  how  very  unneces- 
sary such  agitation  is." 

Sallie,  though  she  at  last  realized  the  possible  signifi- 
cance of  the  event,  recovered  herself  quickly  and  palely 
rose  to  the  occasion. 

"Don't  be  a  silly  boy,  Robinson,"  she  said.  "It  is  all 
as  clear  as  a  pikestaff.  I  am  poor  but  honest,  as  you 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  277 

know.  Go  downtown,  tell  Mr.  Green  the  truth,  and 
nothing  but  the  truth,  and  I'll  explain  later.  After  all, 
old  man,  I  think  they  all  like  me  in  the  office.  They 
have  always  treated  me  well,  and  I  have  nothing  to 
fear.  One  word  from  me,  and — and  they'll  see  it  all. 
Don't  look  so  blank,  dear  little  chap." 

If  ten  men,  with  Bibles  in  their  hands,  had  sworn  to 
this  boy — to  this  little  loyal  excrescence  on  the  skin  of 
a  sordid  age — that  he  would  have  found  in  this 
room  .  .  .  what  he  had  found  ...  he  would  have 
jeered  derisively.  He  would  have  refused  to  believe. 
But  he  was  confronted  by  the  evidence  of  his  own 
senses,  and  the  sight  overwhelmed  him.  Some  philoso- 
phers maintain  that  the  testimony  of  sense  is  fallacious ; 
but  poor  little  Robinson  was  not  a  philosopher. 

"Explain  to  me,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  implored  pite- 
ously.  "Explain  to  me.  I — I  .  .  .  you  know  I  like 
you  so  much.  Explain  to  me.  Bother  the  office.  Do 
you  think  I  wouldn't  rather  give  the  whole  thing  up — 
than  go  near  Mr.  Green,  or  any  of  them  again — than 
cause  you  trouble — make  things  hard  for  you?  Ex- 
plain to  me  .  .  .  not  because  you  have  to,  or  for  the 
sake  of  the  newspaper^— but  because  I  am — I  am  your 
friend.  Explain  to  me.  Do." 

He  was  tremulously  in  earnest,  and  even  the  hard- 
shell sophistication  of  Arthur  Stuyvesant  was  pro- 
foundly touched.  Sallie  was  inclined  to  weaken  under 
this  stress  of  a  so  evident  attachment.  She  had  always 
liked  little  Robinson.  Now  she  could  have  kissed  him 
in  warm  approval  of  his  sentiments,  and  not  because 
they  referred  to  her.  But  it  would  never  do  to  wax 
pathetic — and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  She  braced  her- 
self up. 

"There  is  nothing  to  explain,  Robinson,"  she  said 
lightly.  "Instead  of  discovering  a  naughty  lady  in  this 


278  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

apartment  .  .  .  you  found  me.  And  you  know  me.  I 
am  very  beautiful,  but  not  dangerous.  I  am  an  ex- 
quisite creature,  but  am  warranted  to  be  harmless.  It 
is  very  mortifying,  of  course — and  very  rough  on  Mr. 
Stuyvesant  He  is  a  gentleman  of  marvellous  tact  and 
culture.  He  is  therefore  acquitted  on  the  spot.  The 
driven  snow  is  tainted,  compared  with  me.  Can  you 
not  see  the  unmistakable  glance  of  bland  and  baby-like 
gentleness  in  my  neat  blue  eye — in  both  my  neat  blue 
eyes?  ..." 

"Don't,"  cried  the  boy— "don't.  Don't  make  fun  at 
a  time  like  this.  Just  tell  me  why  you  were  here  .  .  . 
that  is  all.  I— I  must  know." 

She  wondered  what  .she  could  say,  and  cast  about  in 
her  mind  for  a  fitting  response.  Apparently  she 
needed  to  be  "set  right"  even  before  this  devoted  little 
boy.  But  she  could  not  tell  him  the  truth.  As  she  be- 
came aware  of  this,  she  grew  nervous  and  embarrassed. 
She  had  no  desire  to  be  a  martyr  and  a  heroine.  In 
plays  and  books,  of  course,  it  was  always  very  lovely 
for  a  girl  to  immolate  herself,  when  a  few  cheap  words 
would  render  the  immolation  unnecessary. 

Arthur  Stuyvesant  tried  to  come  to  her  rescue. 
"Don't  worry  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said.  "I  told  you 
that  she  was  here  to  interview  me  on  my  opinions  on 
art,  or  the  drama,  or  the  future  of  the  stage  .  .  .  and 
so  forth." 

"No,"  Robinson  retorted  bitterly.  "Miss  Syden- 
ham wouldn't  want  to  interview  you — you  of  all  men. 
The  paper  wouldn't  print  your  views.  You  have  none 
— except  on  women  and  forbidden  topics.  You  are  a 
coward — a  cur — a  beast — " 

Robinson  rose,  blood  in  his  eye,  prepared  to  inflict 
dire  chastisement  upon  the  thickset  actor.  He  was 
small,  but  he  felt  that  he  could  do  it.  He  itched  to  dis- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  279 

figure  the  smug,  smiling  face,  and  to  pound  the  body 
that  took  up  so  much  valuable  space.  Sallie  at  first 
felt  inclined  to  let  him  do  his  worst.  She  sympathized 
with  the  boy's  worthy  indignation,  and  the  idea  of  the 
fat  actor,  lying  stretched  on  the  floor,  done  into  stupor 
by  honest  physical  blows,  appealed  to  her.  But  it 
would  only  make  matters  worse,  and  present  another 
loophole  to  the  scandal-mongers.  Mr.  Stuyvesant, 
pale,  and  not  precisely  in  the  humor  to  defend  himself, 
moved  away,  and  Sallie  pushed  the  reporter  back  into 
his  chair. 

"You  mustn't,"  she  said  quietly.  "You  have  called 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  rather  hard  names.  I  endorse  them. 
He  is  all  that  you  say — a  coward — a  cur — a  beast." 
Her  eyes  flashed,  and  her  indignation  emphasized  it- 
self. "He  is  even  more — and  he  knows  it.  And  now, 
Mr.  Robinson,  you  will  realize  that,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, the  blindest  fool  could  not  imagine,  could 
not  believe  that  my  appearance  here  had  any  subtleties. 
But  I'll  tell  you  the  truth,  as  you  seem  so  very  anxious 
about  it.  I  was  here  to  warn  Mr.  Stuyvesant,  and  that 
is  all.  I  had  already  warned  him,  and  had  you  arrived 
an  hour  later,  you  would  have  discovered  that  the  bird 
had  flown.  That  is  the  truth — and  now  you  know  it." 

"But  why  did  you  warn  him?"  The  little  reporter 
plunged  from  one  labyrinth  into  another.  Personally, 
he  was  satisfied  when  he  heard  her  echo  his  own  vitu- 
perative epithets.  But  the  world  could  not  hear  this, 
and  the  world  would  want  to  know  why  she  was  here. 
"Why  did  you  warn  him?  What  interest  had  you  in 
him?  What  did  you  care  whether  we  found  him,  or 
whether  we  didn't  find  him?  What — " 

"That  will  do,"  Sallie  said  imperiously.  "That  is 
enough.  I  have  explained  all  that  it  is  necessary  to 
explain.  You  are  not  a  very  loyal  friend  .  .  .  you 


280  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

are  very  ready  to  believe  in  appearances.  If  you  really 
liked  me,  as  you  say  you  do — and  as  I  thought  you 
did — you  would  not  want  every  i  dotted  and  every  t 
crossed.  It  is  not  nice  or  kind." 

But  she  knew  that  she  was  unjust.  She  was  quite 
aware  that  the  boy  was  endeavoring  to  formulate  a 
plausible,  logical  statement  in  her  favor.  He  would 
have  to  describe  a  scene  without  the  little  embellish- 
ments of  actuality.  He  was  anxious  to  sketch  a  clean, 
determined  picture — which  should  be  clean  and  deter- 
mined— without  her  appearance  in  its  foreground. 
Still,  she  could  do  no  more.  She  could  not  hint  at 
the  presence  of  another  woman,  revealing  all  but  the 
name.  That  would  merely  pique  Mr.  Green's  curios- 
ity all  the  more.  The  mole-hill  would  become  a  stu- 
pendous mountain,  or  rather,  the  mountain  would  de- 
velop into  a  whole  range.  Mr.  Stuyvesant  had  retired 
to  the  alcove  gladly  enough,  and  was  finishing  his 
packing.  He  had  been  insulted  by  them  both ;  it  was 
his  cue  to  leave  them  to  "fight  it  out"  between  them. 

"Miss  Sydenham,"  said  little  Robinson,  desperately, 
"won't  you  tell  me?  You  are — of  course — quite  inno- 
cent. I  was  a  brute,  a  contemptible  jackass — I  ought 
to  be  kicked  around  the  universe — for  thinking  when 
I  first  came  into  this  room  .  .  .  oh,  you  know  .  .  . 
how  could  I  help  it?  Just  outside  Jackson  said  to  me, 
'Now,  you'll  see  the  woman.  The  first  look  inside  the 
door  will  give  the  whole  snap  away.'  And  then,  after 
that  humiliating,  sneaking,  dastardly  business  with  the 
gas,  when  we  entered  ...  I  saw  you!  Can  you 
blame  me,  Miss  Sydenham?  But,  thank  Heaven,  you 
loathe  that  man — that  wife-deserter!  I  might  have 
been  quite  sure  that  you  did.  You  were  here  to  warn 
him.  You  won't  say  why  or  of  what.  You  will  tell 
me  nothing  more.  Then,  Miss  Sydenham,  I  shall  not 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  281 

go  back  to  the  office.  I  will  never  report  there  again — 
and  to-morrow  I  shall  send  in  my  resignation." 

He  folded  his  arms  and  sat  back  in  his  chair,  the 
light  of  a  clear  motive  in  his  eyes.  And  Sallie  was 
frightened,  for  she  knew  that  reporters  were  always 
poor,  and  she  felt  that  there  was  another  string  to  this 
tragedy,  and  that  little  Robinson,  robbed  of  employ- 
ment, would  starve  in  a  big,  cruel  city.  She  did  not 
stop  to  think  of  the  absurd  rapidity  of  this  unjustifi- 
able conclusion.  She  was  overwrought,  unable  to 
cope  any  further  with  a  situation  that  projected  a  stone 
wall  in  all  directions.  This  was  the  last  straw  that 
broke  the  camel's  back.  She  saw  him  on  a  doorstep, 
white  and  emaciated,  in  rags  and  tatters,  crying  for  a 
crust  and  moaning — perhaps — about  his  mother  and 
the  home  of  his  childhood.  Her  sense  of  humor  took 
unto  itself  wings  and  flew  aloft.  She  burst  into  tears. 

"Oh,  you  are  cruel!"  she  sobbed.  "You  really  are, 
and  I  don't  know  what  to  do.  If  you  give  up  your 
position,  what  will  happen?  You  will  be  wandering 
around  the  streets  .  .  .  and  you  will  get  to  look  like 
old  Witherby  .  .  .  with  nothing  to  rely  on  but  'beats.' 
You  make  me  feel  that  I  am  a  wretch.  I  wish  I  were 
guilty  and  that  you  had  caught  me.  It  would  be  eas- 
ier, and  I  shouldn't  care.  Promise,  promise  that  you 
won't  resign  .  .  ." 

Little  Robinson  grew  frantic  as  he  saw  her  tears. 
Sallie  Sydenham  weeping!  Sallie,  light-hearted,  friv- 
olous, nimble-tongued,  feather-brained,  elastic-mooded 
— crying  like  this!  It  was  all  most  amazing,  and — if 
she  could  have  thought  about  it — it  would  have  been 
more  amazing  to  her.  But  the  strain  of  recent  events 
had  been  severe.  Something  had  snapped,  suddenly, 
in  the  wrong  place — of  course,  in  the  wrong  place — 
and  she  could  not  repress  herself. 


282  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"Sallie,"  he  said  unsteadily,  "for  goodness'  sake, 
don't  cry.  I  was  a  fool  to  talk  as  I  did.  I  won't  re- 
sign; I  promise  I  won't.  My  dear,  dear  girl,  do  try 
and  be  calm.  Even  if  I  did  resign,  I  assure  you  that  I 
shouldn't  starve.  I  am  a  most  able-bodied  person,  and 
I  daresay  I  have  nine  lives.  But  I  won't  do  it.  I'll 
stand  it  all.  Tell  me  what  to  do,  and  I'll  do  it.  Let's 
put  our  heads  together  and  see  what  we  can  arrange." 

Sallie  wept  steadily  on — and  the  more  she  attempted 
to  restrain  herself  the  more  unable  she  seemed  to  re- 
gain her  composure.  The  one  touch  of  pathos  that 
the  situation  needed  seemed  to  have  been  supplied  by 
little  Robinson.  She  would  have  reproached  herself 
so  bitterly  if  this  accursed  entanglement  had  reacted 
upon  his  welfare.  He  was  a  foolish,  impulsive  boy, 
and  she  liked  him  very  much  indeed.  She  was  fond 
of  him  in  a  sane  and  elder-sisterly  way. 

He  was  hopelessly  perplexed  and  very  deeply  de- 
jected. He  took  her  hand  and  dared  reverently  to 
smooth  her  hair,  and  he  said  ludicrous,  soothing 
phrases,  such  as  "There  now !"  "That's  it !"  Gradu- 
ally her  mood  spent  itself,  and  she  dried  her  eyes  and 
tried  to  smile  and  to  consider  the  outlook  alertly. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said,  half  laughing,  as  he  uttered 
"There  now !"  again,  and  capped  it  with  a  "That's  it," 
as  though  the  remedial  qualities  of  those  phrases  were 
beyond  cavil.  "I  am  quite  ashamed  of  myself,  old 
chap,  but  you  made  me  cry.  I  sha'n't  do  it  again ;  you 
needn't  be  afraid.  I  wonder  what  Mr.  Childers  would 
say  if  he  saw  a  jolly  good  fellow  like  me  in  tears.  It 
is  quite  unmanly,  isn't  it?  It  is  a  pastime  for  weak 
women,  and  I'm  not  a  weak  woman,  I'm  thankful  to 
say." 

She  was  ashamed  for  Stuyvesant  to  see  her  in  tears ; 
but  the  actor,  busy  at  his  work,  had  paid  little  attention 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  283 

to  them.  He  had  now  finished  his  packing,  and  there 
was  nothing  further  for  him  to  do  but  leave.  Every- 
thing was  labelled  with  the  address  of  a  storage  house, 
and  in  the  morning  the  goods  would  be  sent  for,  and 
the  home  of  the  Comptons  finally  dismantled.  As  far 
as  Ivy  Hampton  was  concerned,  the  situation,  he 
thought,  hadn't  a  leg  to  stand  on.  Of  that  much  he 
felt  certain.  He  was  distinctly  uncomfortable  and  ill 
at  ease  in  the  knowledge  that  the  young  people  before 
him  despised  him  too  completely  for  expression.  It 
was  not  a  cosy  situation,  and  Stuyvesant,  replete  as 
he  was  with  blunt  edges,  thoroughly  realized  that. 
They  had  each  of  them  called  him  a  cur  .  .  .  and  the 
force  of  this  double  suggestion  made  itself  sentient. 
But  except  in  the  garish  melodrama  that  is  flashed 
before  an  indiscriminating  public,  the  worst  villain  is 
not  as  black  as  he  is  painted,  and  vice  is  never  so  thick- 
ly laid  on  as  to  be  devoid  of  ventilation.  "Few  are  as 
bad  as  censorious  professors  imagine,"  said  Richard 
Baxter,  anxious  for  his  "Saints'  Everlasting  Rest." 
"In  some,  indeed,  I  find  that  human  nature  is  cor- 
rupted into  a  greater  likeness  to  devils  than  I  once 
thought  any  on  earth  had  been.  But  even  in  the 
wicked  there  is  more  for  grace  to  take  advantage  of, 
and  more  to  testify  for  God  and  holiness,  than  I  once 
believed  there  had  been." 

Arthur  Stuyvesant  felt  that  this  clever  woman  would 
save  the  situation  entirely.  He  did  not  even  contem- 
plate the  possibility — grotesque  and  caricature-like — 
of  finding  his  name  coupled  with  hers.  The  powerful 
wheels  of  journalism  would  undoubtedly  interpose.  It 
was  all  very  trying,  and  the  distress  of  the  two  news- 
paper cogs  affected  him.  He  would  willingly  have  ap- 
plied balm  to  their  feelings  if  it  had  been  in  his  power 
to  do  so.  But  his  sphere  was  restricted.  The  most 


284  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

decent  thing  that  he  could  now  do  was  to  leave  them. 
Yet  he  must  avoid  thanking  her,  or  giving  any  clue  to 
the  blurred  outlines  of  the  map,  by  which  the  boy  could 
profit.  It  was  annoying,  because  a  silent  departure 
made  him  look  even  more  blackguardly  than  was  neces- 
sary. 

"I  am  ready,  Miss  Sydenham,  and  I  will  go,"  he  said. 
"Can  I  be  of  any  use?  No?  Well,  if  you  will  kindly 
turn  out  the  lights  and  close  the  doors  when  you  leave, 
you  will  be  very  kind.  The  villain  slinks  away,"  he 
added,  with  an  uneasy  laugh  for  little  Robinson's  bene- 
fit, "but,  in  this  case,  Mr.  Robinson,  he  is  misjudged. 
Appearances  certainly  proved  their  own  treachery." 
Then,  theatrically,  "Miss  Sydenham,  of  course,  is  sans 
peur  et  sans  reproche.  It  goes  without  saying." 

When  he  had  left,  Sallie's  sense  of  humor  came  back 
swiftly,  as  though  completely  ashamed  of  its  temporary 
absence.  She  saw  the  absurd  side  of  things,  and  Mr. 
Stuyvesant's  last  words  filled  her  with  irresistible 
mirth. 

"That!"  she  cried  in  uncontrollable  merriment — 
"that!  I  am  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,  and  it  goes 
without  saying!  Isn't  it  killing — simply  too  scream- 
ing? Imagine  the  farce  of  having  to  'say'  anything! 
He  is  really  a  very  amusingly  revolting  person.  I 
should  think  that  even  on  a  desert  island  he  would  be 
de  trop,  shouldn't  you,  Robinson?  And  you  thought 
— when  you  came  into  this  room — no,  I  can't  believe  it. 
You  didn't  really,  did  you,  old  boy?  Now,  own  up. 
You  thought  that  it  was  very  quaint  and  inexplicable, 
but  you  didn't  imagine — " 

The  conviction  of  her  mood  was  so  absolute  that 
little  Robinson  began  to  earnestly  wonder  how  he  could 
have  been  such  an  ass.  What  was  there,  even  in  the 
seeming  testimony  of  one's  own  eyes,  to  warrant  such 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  285 

a  ridiculous  supposition?  Are  the  eyes  and  the  ears 
impervious  to  the  rays  of  logic  ?  Little  Robinson  pon- 
dered the  question  .  .  .  and  then  it  occurred  to  him 
quite  unpleasantly  that  though  his  conviction  was  in- 
eradicable, it  was  still  not  backed  up  by  any  luminous 
explanation.  He  had  forgotten  this  fact;  now  he  re- 
called it. 

"Tell  me,"  she  persisted,  "if  you  really  thought  that 
I  was  the  veiled  beauty  ?  Do.  Then  I  shall  no  longer 
write  about  improbable  plays,  or  bother  to  criticize 
things  because  they  could  not  be  possible.  I  shall  try 
to  believe  in  everything,  and — when  I  remember  this — 
I  feel  certain  that  I  shall  succeed." 

"Of  course,"  he  said  haltingly,  "I  was  very  much 
worked  up,  and  I  explained  to  you  how  Mr.  Jackson 
had  arranged  things.  He  told  me  that  I  should  surely 
see  the  guilty  woman  as  soon  as  the  door  was  opened. 
And  I  saw  you.  I  didn't  stop  to  reason.  I  was  a  fool, 
of  course;  I  know  it  now.  But — but — don't  remind 
me  of  it,  Sallie." 

"I  notice,"  she  remarked  good-naturedly,  "that  you 
are  calling  me  Sallie.  Don't  mind  me.  I  like  it. 
Keep  on  calling  me  Sallie,  old  boy.  It's  my  name. 
And  as  you've  acquitted  me  and  labelled  me  not  guilty, 
I'm  going  to  do  a  nice  thing  for  you.  I  intend  to  in- 
troduce you  to  a  very  pretty  sister  of  mine.  You  must 
come  up  and  dine  with  us,  and  we'll  have  high  old 
times." 

Little  Robinson  did  not  seem  to  be  wildly  elated  at 
the  prospect  of  an  introduction  to  Sallie's  sister.  But 
he  was  anxious  to  decently  manipulate  the  frayed  edges 
of  this  situation.  Miss  Sydenham  apparently  looked 
upon  events  with  her  accustomed  cheeriness  of  out- 
look— and  could  turn  to  other  topics — but  the  young 
reporter  felt  that  nothing  had  really  happened  to  miti- 


286  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

gate  the  ugliness  of  the  prospect.  All  that  had  really 
occurred  might  be  called  internal  illumination.  But 
it  was  with  externals  that  they  had  to  deal. 

"I  am  to  go  to  the  office — "  he  began. 

"Yes,"  she  assented;  and  she  gave  her  orders  with 
slow  emphasis.  "You  are  to  go  to  the  office — like  a 
good  boy — and  a  conscientious  little  reporter — and 
you  are  to  see  Mr.  Green — and  you  are  to  laugh — and 
you  are  to  say  in  a  rather  vexed  tone,  'Mr.  Green,  I'm 
sorry  to  say  that  the  only  woman  we  found  with  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  was  Sallie  Sydenham,'  and — " 

"Don't  you  think,"  interrupted  little  Robinson,  "that 
it  would  be  more  telling  if  I  went  in  laughing,  and  said 
something  like  this  :  'Oh,  Mr.  Green,  such  a  sell !  The 
whole  story  has  caved  in,  for  there  was  no  mystery 
and  no  veiled  lady.  We  found  him  simply  discussing 
platitudes  with  Miss  Sydenham.'  Don't  you  think  that 
would  be  more  forcible — more  diplomatic?" 

"No,"  she  replied ;  and  she  could  not  resist  a  smile 
at  the  boy's  labored  Machiavellianism.  "It  would  be 
too  elaborate,  old  man.  And  you  must  remember  that 
Mr.  Green  is  suspicious  by  nature,  and  by  choice.  Ad- 
mit that  you  found  a  woman,  and  .  .  .  then  mention 
me.  For,  after  all,  I  am  a  woman,  Robinson.  I  find 
it  necessary  to  remind  all  my  friends  of  that  fact  occa- 
sionally, and  I  don't  quite  know  why.  But  let  Mr. 
Green's  conviction  of  the  absurdity  of  the  situation 
come  naturally.  Don't  help  it.  Don't  allow  him  to 
think  that  you  are  prejudiced  either  for  or  against  the 
story.  You  went  to  the  house  with  the  detective,  and 
you  found  me.  That  is  all." 

Little  Robinson  frowned  anxiously.  Perpendicular 
lines  furrowed  themselves  down  his  brow,  and  he  re- 
flected rather  painfully  for  a  moment  or  two.  Then  he 
said:  "But  suppose  Mr,  Green  should  jump  to  horrid 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  287 

conclusions?  If  he  did — if  he  did — oh,  Sallie,  I  should 
punch  him  ...  I  know  I  should.  I  couldn't  help  it; 
I  begin  to  feel  the  need  of  punching  somebody.  If  you 
had  only  let  me  work  off  steam  on  the  actor!  ...  I 
think  I'd  sooner  manage  the  thing  in  my  own  way,  if 
you  don't  mind,  Sallie.  If  I  see  that  Green,  for  one 
second,  is  inclined  to  regard  the  position  in  a  way  de- 
rogatory to  you,  I  ...  I  ...  shall  smash  him!" 

"Oh,  Robinson,"  she  exclaimed,  "please,  please  don't 
say  such  things."  Then,  as  she  realized  the  inspired 
loyalty  of  this  doughty  young  champion,  she  went  on : 
"I  am  so  grateful  to  you,  old  friend,  for  your  allegi- 
ance. If,  at  first,  Mr.  Green  takes  an  evil  view  of  the 
case,  you  must  remember  that  .  .  .  you  did  it  too, 
Robinson.  Yes,"  holding  up  her  hand  as  he  was  about 
to  impulsively  interrupt  her,  "you  could  not  resist  the 
obvious  conclusion.  But  as  soon  as  you  began  to  con- 
sider it,  it  showed  itself  to  you  as  grotesque.  The 
same  thing  may  happen  to  Mr.  Green.  Why  not? 
He  is  a  kind  man,  and  I  think  he  likes  me,  but  he  is  not 
as  staunch  an  adherent  as  you  are,  you  silly,  impulsive 
boy.  So  do  not  worry  yourself  about  anything  that 
may  happen.  Go  to  the  office,  unburden  yourself  of 
your  story,  and  then — go  horn:.  I  will  see  Mr.  Green 
to-morrow,  and  everything  will  come  out  all  right;  I 
know  it ;  I  feel  it  in  my  bones,  and  am  not  in  the  least 
afraid.  Perhaps,"  she  said  rather  bitterly,  "I  have 
been  a  bad  advertisement  for  womanhood.  I  have  not 
done  much,  in  the  office,  for  the  dignity  of  my  sex. 
But,  at  least,  I  have  never  indicated  a  preference  for 
wanton  behavior,  and  my  errors  have  all  been  of  the 
pen  .  .  .  penny." 

"You  have  been  a  brick !"  he  exclaimed  impulsively, 
"and  it  was  just  your  unconventionality  that  won  us. 
Of  course,  we  chattered  about  you — when  you  said 


288  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

risky  things,  and  wrote  riskier — but  it  was  because  we 
had  never  met  any  girl  like  you.  Bad  women  don't 
talk;  they  just  think  and  act.  We  all  know  that  .  .  . 
and  I  know  one  or  two  of  the  boys  who'd  fight  for  you 
to  their  last  drop  of  blood." 

"I  don't  want  to  be  fatten  for,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh ; 
but  she  was  moved  by  this  picturesque  devotion,  and  by 
the  aggressive  attitude  of  the  young  reporter.  "It 
isn't  a  case  for  bloodshed,  Robinson,"  she  went  on. 
"Of  course,  a  battle  would  be  rather  startling — and 
wouldn't  the  other  papers  enjoy  it?  But,"  wearily, 
"the  sooner  we  end  all  this  the  better.  It  is  nasty, 
however  one  may  look  at  it.  The  theme  is  repulsive, 
and  we  must  drop  it,  as  though  it  were  pitch.  Let's 
go.  The  atmosphere  of  this  place  sickens  me." 

"Tell  me  one  thing,"  he  said  suddenly,  "and  I  prom- 
ise never  again  to  allude  to  the  subject.  There  was  a 
woman  here  when  you  arrived?" 

Sallie  looked  into  his  eyes — splendid,  fearless  eyes, 
in  which  she  saw  the  young,  warm  radiancy  of  his 
sentiment.  It  was  cruel  to  use  this  boy  blindly — to 
keep  him  in  utter  darkness,  as  though  afraid  of  his 
chivalry  when  subjected  to  an  illuminating  ray  of 
knowledge.  She  felt  somewhat  ashamed  of  herself. 
She  was  behaving  like  the  insensate  heroines  of  the 
stage,  who  remain  lugubriously  silent  until  the  fifth  act, 
to  pose  as  martyrs  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  clamor  for 
fifty  cents'  worth  of  high-falutin  martyrdom.  Yet  she 
was  bound  to  be  careful  .  .  .  for  Jack  Childers'  sake. 
It  was  Jack  Childers  who  was  at  stake,  and  so  far  he 
was  luxuriously  safe.  She  hated  to  jeopardize  the 
position.  Still,  it  was  unkind  to  treat  this  boy  with 
such  crude  courtesy. 

"See  here,  Robinson,"  she  said ;  and  she  went  to  him 
and  put  her  hands  upon  his  shoulders  and  spoke  into 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  289 

his  eyes — "I  rely  upon  your  honor — upon  your  honor 
as  a  man.  You  must  swear  to  me,  on  your  solemn 
oath,  that  never — under  any  conceivable  circumstances 
— will  you  give  me  away.  You  must  also  swear  that 
you  will  ask  no  further  questions  if  I  answer  this. 
I  ...  I  do  appreciate  your  devotion,  old  boy,  and  that 
is  why  I  can't  help  believing  that  I  am  too  rigid.  You 
swear  .  .  ." 

"So  help  me  God,"  he  said  solemnly. 

''Then,"  she  went  on,  "there  was  another  woman. 
She  was — she  was  a  friend  of  mine.  That  is  all.  Are 
you  satisfied?" 

His  eyes  lighted  up,  and  he  looked  at  her  as  though 
she  were  a  saint,  and  he  half  expected  to  see  a  halo 
spreading  from  her  head.  To  his  boyish  mind  her  ac- 
tion appealed  as  something  super-femininely  luminous. 
He  told  himself  that  no  mere  man  could  realize  the 
depth  and  breadth  and  width  of  this  sacrifice ;  for  no 
mere  man  could  ever  be  called  upon  to  imperil  a  reputa- 
tion for  chastity  .  .  .  inasmuch  as  no  mere  man  ever 
coveted  such  a  reputation.  To  a  woman  it  meant  a 
good  deal.  He  tried  to  put  himself  in  her  place  and 
to  imagine  what  her  sensations  must  have  been  when 
for  a  moment  he  had  judged  the  situation  by  its  super- 
ficial measurements.  Fool  that  he  had  been !  Unrea- 
soning idiot!  And  just  then  he  could  not  find  it  in 
his  heart  to  believe  that  there  could  possibly  be  other 
such  fools — other  such  unreasoning  idiots.  How  glad- 
ly he  would  go  forth  and  demolish  them  all !  He  felt 
strong,  pugnacious,  inspired,  as  he  turned  the  situation 
over  in  his  mind.  He  would  have  loved  to  confront 
any  of  her  possible  slanderers,  and  make  them  eat  their 
own  empty  suspicions.  He  rose,  took  her  hand,  and, 
bowing  his  head,  kissed  it,  while  the  tears  sprang  to 
his  eyes. 


290  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

And  Sallie  battled  with  herself  and  sought  for  the 
airy  moods  that  of  late  seemed  to  be  playing  hide-and- 
seek  with  her.  .  .  .  just  when  she  needed  them. 

"You  can  kiss  me  properly,"  she  said  flippantly — 
the  mood  had  arrived,  labelled  "fragile,"  however — 
"you  needn't  bother  about  my  hand.  Oh,  how  you 
tickled!  Positively, old  man,  the  hand-kissing  business 
is  most  ridiculous,  and  I  should  think  that  kings  and 
queens  must  be  wonderfully  un-ticklish.  Kisses  are 
silly  things  at  best,  but  there  is  no  use  beating  about 
the  hands  for  them.  Please  kiss  me  for  my  mother." 

But  her  scatterbrain  words  had  won,  and  he  had  no 
desire  for  the  conventional  salute  that  she  suggested. 
Sallie  was  quite  aware  that  this  courtly  boy  would  not 
bend  forward  and  peck  her  on  the  cheek  as  soon  as 
she  said  that  he  might  do  so. 

"I  move  that  we  herewith  adjourn  sine  die"  she 
said  quickly. 

All  around  them  lay  the  trunks  and  cases  of  the  dis- 
rupted Compton  menage,  and  the  dismantled  room 
looked  as  though  a  conflict  had  been  waged  in  its 
midst.  In  the  morning  no  trace  of  the  drama  tliat  had 
been  acted  in  and  around  it  would  remain.  This  was 
the  very  "finis,"  she  triumphantly  told  herself — the 
irrevocable  end.  The  woman  was  saved;  the  villain 
had  slunk  away,  to  the  hisses  of  an  audience  of  two. 
And  that  audience  of  two  could  now  withdraw. 

"Ring  down  the  curtain,"  she  cried  joyously,  "and — 
may  it  stay  down." 

They  turned  out  the  gas  slowly  and  went  quietly 
out,  meeting  nobody,  and  closing  the  situation  in  grim 
deliberation. 

"And  now,"  said  Sallie  lightly,  as  they  reached  the 
street  and  she  inhaled  the  tainted  air  of  the  neighbor- 
hood as  though  it  were  a  vital  draught  of  bracing 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  291 

ozone,  "and  now,  my  boy,  you  go  right  down  to  the  of- 
fice and  do  your  little  turn.  Tell  Mr.  Green  that  I' shall 
pay  him  a  visit  to-morrow  evening.  Thank  you,  Rob- 
inson, so  much.  I  am  going  to  paint  you  in  most  glow- 
ing colors  to  my  sister  Lettie.  You'll  like  her,  for  she 
is  really  a  charming  girl,  and  awfully  jolly.  Mind  you 
'speak  your  piece'  well ;  stand  up  like  a  little  man  and 
address  the  audience  nicely.  Oh,  I'm  so  tired.  I  feel 
about  a  hundred  and  ninety-nine  in  the  shade — posi- 
tively decrepit — as  though  I  ought  to  wear  a  cap  and 
have  nice  little  white  curls  jiggling  around  my  ears. 
Good-night,  old  chap ;  good-night." 

He  wrung  her  hand  and  left  her.  Her  mood  had 
infected  him;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  alone,  dark  and 
dreary  misgivings  asserted  themselves.  He  tried  to 
oust  them  from  his  mind,  but  without  success.  He 
attempted  to  laugh  at  his  fears,  but  he  could  not  dis- 
cover laughter's  cue.  He  was  to  pillory  a  noble  girl, 
and  then  to  stand  aside  and  watch  her  in  the  antics  of 
torture.  He  was  about  to  ply  a  sensation-hungry 
journalist — with  a  keen  scent  for  deeds,  but  no  olfac- 
tory perception  of  motives — with  a  bald  story  that 
might  stand  ashamed  in  its  starkness.  And  of  the  real 
truth — Sallie  had  left  him  in  ignorance.  He  knew  just 
enough  to  make  him  cry  out  in  the  stress  of  starvation 
for  more.  The  glimmering  of  truth  that  was  so  con- 
vincing to  him  would — even  if  he  were  allowed  to  hint 
at  it — merely  add  to  the  possibilities  of  crass  suspicion. 
"I  did  it  for  another  woman — a  friend — a  nameless 
friend" — that  would  be  the  final  ignominous  support  of 
infamous  incredulity.  That  support  he  was  pledged 
not  to  offer. 

Little  Robinson  felt  that  the  irony  of  events  encom- 
passed him  irremediably. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

CAN'T  bear  to  think  of  your  confronting  the 
men  in  the  office  with  this  dreadful  story," 
said  Lettie,  anxiously,  after  she  had  thor- 
oughly threshed  out  the  situation  with  her 
sister  and  they  had  talked  into  the  "wee  sma'  hours" 
in  exasperating  repetition.  "You  don't  seem  to  realize 
it  at  all,  Sallie.  It  is  wonderful  to  me  how  you  can 
even  contemplate  it.  You  are  so  bright  in  some  ways 
and  so  dense  in  others.  And  then — don't  you  think 
you  are  awfully  conceited  to  believe  that  those  editors 
and  things  will  reverse  the  most  obvious  opinions — 
just  because  it  is  you?" 

For  three  hours  they  had  argued  round  a  circle,  in 
endless  revolution.  It  was  now  three  o'clock.  Two 
hours  earlier,  Lettie  had  made  precisely  the  same  re- 
mark, and  then  .  .  .  on,  on,  round  the  circle.  If  they 
continued  talking  Lettie  would  arrive  again  at  the  iden- 
tical phrases,  and  they  would  be  due  at  five  o'clock. 
And  again  at  seven.  Every  two  hours  she  would  say, 
"I  can't  think  of  your  confronting  the  men  in  the  of- 
fice"— until  one  of  them  fell  by  the  wayside  in  sheer 
exhaustion. 

"I  told  you,  dear,"  Sallie  said  patiently,  "that  it  is 
because  I  am  I  that  I  dare  to  confront  them.  You 
can't  understand,  you  silly  girl,  that  they  don't  look 
upon  me  as  a  woman.  I  admit  that  if  an  ordinary  girl 
were  found  in  the  position  in  which  I  was  placed,  evi- 
dence would  be  dead  against  her.  But  it  is  different 
in  my  case.  I  am  not  a  woman,  and  I  am  not  a  man. 
I  am  just  Sallie,  a  sort  of  jester  who  wears  cap  and 
bells  for  the  benefit  of  the  office.  I  can  find  sanctuary 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  293 

where  other  girls  would  discover  all  sorts  of  horrid 
danger.  I  should  be  dreadfully  afraid,  Lettie,  to  face 
women  in  such  a  case.  But  .  .  .  men  are  different." 

Lettie  sighed  .  .  .  she  had  sighed  a  good  deal  lately. 
"Of  course,"  she  remarked,  "my  experience  with  men 
has  not  been  very  extensive,  and  I  wish  I  could  enlarge 
it.  I  have  never  found  men  so  vastly  superior  to 
women  as  they  like  to  appear.  They  are  inveterate 
gossips;  they  have  their  petty  jealousies  and  their  triv- 
ial outlook.  They  are  malicious,  and  spiteful,  and 
coarse.  But  they  have  their  distractions,  and  so  are 
able  to  be  other  things.  Give  men  the  restricted  hori- 
zon to  which  feeble  women  are  assigned  and  their  su- 
periority would  crumble." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Sallie,  wearily.  "Just  the  same,  I 
like  them,  and  I  believe  that  they  will  stand  by  me.  If 
they  don't,  I  can't  help  it.  I've  made  my  bed,  and  I 
must  lie  in  it.  And  I'm  going  to  do  it  now,  Lettie,  if 
you  don't  mind,  for  I'm  simply  done  up." 

She  lay  awake,  thinking  over  her  jeopardy.  The 
one  thing  she  dreaded,  the  thought  of  which  turned  her 
cold  with  horror,  was  the  inevitable  enlightenment  of 
Jack  Childers.  For  he  must  be  told.  The  whole 
point  of  the  case  lay  in  that  fact.  She  could  not  allow 
his  engagement  to  Ivy  Hampton  to  endure,  with  mar- 
riage imminent  at  any  moment.  She  had  undertaken 
to  involve  herself  in  this  matter  for  his  sake  only,  and 
for  no  other  reason.  She  had  been  eminently  success- 
ful so  far,  and  had  pushed  aside  the  indurated  scandal. 
The  world  would  never  be  any  the  wiser  now,  but  she 
would  not  have  done  all  this  just  for  the  sake  of  the 
world.  Jack  Childers  was  the  pivot  of  it  all,  and  now 
that  the  truth  had  been  detected,  and  asphyxiated  in  its 
detection,  his  engagement  must  be  irreparably  rup- 
tured. How?  By  whom?  When? 


294  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

She  recalled  his  words  when  she  had  frivolously 
asked  him  what  would  happen  if  Miss  Hampton  said 
"Stand  aside.  I  can  never  be  yours."  They  had  com- 
forted her — those  words — and  she  heard  them  now. 
"Well,  Sallie,"  he  had  said,  "I'm  afraid  I'm  prosaic. 
I'm  awfully  sorry,  but  I  don't  think  it  would  kill  me. 
I  wish  I  could  tell  you  that  I  should  pine  away  in  a 
beautiful  green  and  yellow  melancholy.  Alas!  I  fear 
I  shouldn't.  The  twentieth  century  doesn't  lend  itself 
to  that  sort  of  thing,  does  it?  Of  course,  I  should  be 
horribly  put  out,  and  I  think  I  should  make  it  very 
warm  for  Miss  Hampton." 

Blessed  words!  But  they  were  powerless  now  to 
console  her.  It  was  not  a  question  of  a  charmingly 
simple  melodramatic  "Stand  aside !"  She  must  let  an 
avalanche  of  nauseating  fact  fall  upon  his  unsuspect- 
ing shoulders.  She  must  drench  him,  as  he  stood  there 
in  his  bonhomie  and  his  easy  good-natured  indulgence, 
with  this  vile  story.  She  must  prove  to  him  that  his 
ingenuous  cousin,  with  the  silver-gold  hair,  was  .  .  . 
oh,  what  was  she  ?  She  would  dot  the  i's  and  cross  the 
t's,  and  destroy  his  ideal,  and  paint  his  family  in  the 
gruesome  tints  of  dishonor.  And — and,  perhaps,  he 
would  not  believe  her.  Why  should  he  do  so,  without 
investigation?  Would  it  be  possible  that,  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice,  his  ideas  of  Ivy  Hampton  could  be  ab- 
ruptly revolutionized?  He  would  loathe  her  for  what 
she  told  him.  He  would  turn  from  her  in  repulsion. 
He  would  recoil  from  her  damning  revelation.  And 
she  could  see  him,  pale  and  stricken,  before  her.  It 
was  quite  too  ghastly.  And  if  she  approached  Mrs. 
Hampton?  That — that  she  could  never  do.  Even 
were  it  more  advisable,  were  she  to  feel  assured  that  it 
was  the  most  politic  course  to  pursue — that  she  could 
never  do.  She  could  not  subject  herself  to  the  scru- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  295 

tiny  of  the  gold  lorgnettes,  or  to  the  shower  of  sly 
disbelief  that  would  fall  upon  her. 

Sallie  rose  from  her  bed,  and,  falling  on  her  knees, 
prayed  as  she  had  never  prayed  before.  She  begged 
for  enlightenment ;  she  besought  for  illumination ;  she 
implored,  with  a  fervor  that  seemed  to  send  her  brain, 
in  shocks,  straight  to  the  Cause  of  all  Things,  for  some 
consolation  in  this,  her  hour  of  need.  Her  whole  being 
went  out  in  this  prayer,  and  when  she  had  ended  it,  she 
went  back,  limp,  weak,  and  hardly  conscious,  to  her 
bed.  But  the  sharp  agony  was  over,  and  she  fell 
asleep. 

And  as  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  Sallie  knew  next 
morning  that  she  would  never  again  doubt.  That  her 
prayer  was  answered — and  luminously  answered — she 
felt  as  certain  as  she  did  that  the  sun  shone.  For  dur- 
ing the  early  morning  hours  a  messenger  brought  her 
a  letter  that  read  as  follows : 

DEAR  Miss  SYDENHAM  : 

Though  I  am  contemptible  and  completely  merit  the 
very  worst  things  that  you  can  think  of  me,  still  I  am 
not  such  an  utter  brute  as  to  be  unmoved  by  your  con- 
duct of  yesterday.  You  may  be  surprised  to  hear  that 
Miss  Hampton,  during  a  discussion  that  we  have  just 
had,  was — in  spite  of  herself  and  her  unfriendly  feel- 
ings— also  touched.  You  have  done  a  great  thing,  and 
we  know  why  you  have  done  it.  Do  not  believe  that  I 
am  writing  in  any  spirit  but  that  of  admiration.  You 
may  think  that  we  are  a  bad  lot,  but — there  are  worse, 
and  we  sympathize  with  you.  Of  course,  you  will  feel 
it  your  duty  to  break  the  engagement  between  Ivy  and 
Mr.  Childers.  That  will  be  even  harder  for  you  than 
the  difficult  task  you  have  already  undertaken  and  car- 
ried through.  And  so  I  write  these  lines  to  you,  Miss 


296  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

Sydenham,  to  tell  you  that  the  engagement  will  be 
broken,  and  that  you  can  leave  the  matter  to  us.  I 
swear  to  you  solemnly,  by  all  that  I  have  ever  held  holy 
(and  there  have  been  a  few  things,  Miss  Sydenham; 
there  are  still  one  or  two)  that  Ivy  and  Mr.  Childers 
will  never  be  married.  Rest  quite  assured  of  that. 
You  can  leave  Mr.  Childers  in  tranquillity  for  the  pres- 
ent. You  need  not  be  the  bearer  of  news  that  you 
would  loathe  to  tell  him.  When  the  time  comes,  every- 
thing will  be  explained.  I  can  tell  you  nothing  more  at 
present.  Only  be  satisfied  and  convinced  that  you 
have  nothing  further  to  do.  You  can  rely  upon  this 
as  surely  as  you  can  rely  upon  anything  in  this  world. 
You  can  also  believe  that  we  are  actuated  solely  by 
our  own  interests.  That  will  be  easier  for  you;  you 
would  not  readily  credit  a  statement  that  we  were 
moved  by  sentiment  for  you  and  for  Mr.  Childers.  It 
would  also  be  untrue.  So  this  letter  is  designed  mere- 
ly to  make  you  feel  less  uneasy,  and  to  assure  you  that 
matters  will  take  their  proper  course  without  your 
interference.  Your  burden  will  thus  be  lightened. 
You  can  leave  Mr.  Childers  to  us,  and  if  nothing  hap- 
pens just  at  present,  you  can  still  abide  in  all  security. 
For  something  will  happen. 

"ARTHUR  STUYVESANT." 

Sallie  threw  the  letter  to  her  sister,  and  sat  smiling 
with  utter  thankfulness  as  she  realized  its  stupendous 
meaning.  Her  prayer  had  been  answered  swiftly,  di- 
rectly, and  unmistakably.  Even  the  fools  who  explain 
away  things  by  the  elastic  law  of  coincidence  would  be 
impressed  by  this.  She  felt  light-hearted,  happy,  and 
she  went  about  the  house  singing  blithely. 

"And,  Lettie,"  she  cried,  "little  Robinson  shall  come 
up,  and — if  you  don't  fall  head  over  heels  in  love  with 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  297 

him,  then  you  are  like  your  sister,  and  I've  no  patience 
with  you.  Oh,  you  will  be  charmed.  He  is  the  dear- 
est little  boy.  What  luck,  Let,  to  think  you  came  to 
me  in  New  York!  It  is  perfectly  delightful.  Aren't 
you  glad?" 

But  when  the  time  came  for  the  trip  downtown  and 
the  interview  with  Mr.  Green,  her  high  spirits  left  her, 
and  she  felt  subdued  and  a  trifle  shaky.  The  matter 
had  now  resolved  itself  into  a  mere  question  of  self; 
but  altruism  had  been  stretched  to  its  limits,  and  Sallie 
was  now  obliged  to  realize  her  own  personal  danger. 
Of  course,  there  really  was  no  danger,  she  told  herself, 
but  she  would  totter  on  the  brink,  and  stand,  dizzy,  at 
the  extreme  verge. 

"I  feel  I  ought  to  wear  scarlet,"  she  said  to  Lettie,  as 
she  prepared  for  her  visit  to  the  office,  "and  dash  in 
upon  them  like  a  beautiful,  reckless  picture  of  sin." 

"Hush!"  cried  Lettie,  distressed.  "How  can  you 
joke  about  it?  I  don't  like  to  think  about  it.  I  wish 
you  would  let  me  go  with  you,  Sallie,  just  for  the  sake 
of  company,  of  course ;  I  shouldn't  be  any  use,  but  per- 
haps you  would  like  to  know  that  I  was  there." 

But  Sallie  had  no  intention  of  creeping  in,  abashed, 
behind  a  sister.  She  understood  the  owls  as  nobody 
else  understood  them.  She  would  be  brave,  and 
jaunty,  and  amusing,  and  flippant  .  .  .  and  they  would 
be  easily  convinced.  And  Mr.  Green  would  laugh  and 
look  at  her  with  that  curious  expression  which  she 
knew  so  well.  She  had  seen  it  frequently  when  she 
discussed  improper  plays  with  him  and  skated  over 
their  thin  ice  in  devil-may-care  abandon.  It  was  a  sort 
of  look  she  rather  liked,  as  it  was  so  completely  un- 
usual. She  was  not  to  be  non-plused,  and  she  would 
make  a  staunch  fight  for  her  immaculacy.  It  should 
all  be  humorous,  for  the  pathetic  was  stupid  and  gen- 


298  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

erally  unconvincing.  It  might  be  harder  to  cope  with 
Jack  Childers  .  .  .  but  she  would  not  think  of  that 
at  present.  Once  in  working  order  again,  with  her 
nose  to  the  grindstone,  and  her  daily  routine — that  had 
been  sadly  displaced — re-established,  and  the  old  foot- 
ing with  Jack  Childers  would  be  comfortably  resettled. 
And  then  .  .  .  well,  there  was  no  use  worrying  fu- 
turity. It  must  take  care  of  itself,  as  it  would  prob- 
ably do,  with  or  without  her  intervention. 

Owldom  was  at  labor  .  .  .  and  the  owls  blinked  into 
New  York's  midnight.  Their  time  had  come  and  their 
moping  hour  was  over.  But  Sallie  was  not  impressed, 
for  she  knew  it  all  by  heart.  Only  .  .  .  only  on  this 
occasion  she  approached  the  nest  upon  a  very  different 
mission.  No  fictitious  heroine  of  theatredom  claimed 
her  attention,  and  the  pros  and  cons  of  imaginary  situa- 
tions seemed  absurdity  unsubstantial.  It  was  a  real 
drama  that  had  been  played,  and  her  object  was  to 
prove  that  she  was  not  its  villain.  She,  herself,  was 
on  trial  to-night — not  the  dreamy  creations  of  a  play- 
wright's brain,  and  the  criticism  of  this  real  drama 
would  be  made  by  others. 

She  wondered  if  she  imagined  it,  or  if  it  were  really 
a  fact  .  .  .  but  surely  the  click,  the  whirr,  and  all  the 
indescribable  onomatopoeia  of  Owldom  ceased  as  she 
entered  the  large,  live,  tense  reportorial  room.  She 
noticed — or  she  thought  she  noticed — that  the  report- 
ers paused  in  their  work  to  look  at  her.  They  shook 
off  the  temporary  thraldom  of  murder,  arson,  lust,  and 
deviltry,  hung  their  meagre  list  of  trite  verbs,  adverbs 
and  adjectives  in  abeyance,  and  watched  her  as  she 
slowly  approached  the  night  city  editor.  And  they  sat 
at  their  desks  mute,  happily  interrupted  as  schoolboys, 
gloating  over  the  momentary  alienation  of  "teacher." 

Surely  .  .  .  she  thought  .  .  .  there  was  something 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  299 

in  the  atmosphere,  some  strange,  disturbing  influence 
that  subtly  attacked  her  sensory  nerves.  She  saw  little 
Robinson  with  a  huge  mound  of  "copy  paper"  before 
him.  He  smiled  at  her,  but  it  was  the  pale  ghost  of 
a  smile.  Even  the  office-boys  grouped  themselves  to- 
gether and  talked.  But  they  always  talked  .  .  .  they 
were  incorrigible.  Still,  just  now,  their  voices  seemed 
to  be  peculiarly  hushed.  The  entire  office,  in  fact, 
struck  a  sibilant  sound,  the  meaning  of  which  she 
could  scarcely  penetrate. 

Mr.  Green  did  not  see  her  until  she  reached  his  desk. 
Then  he  started,  glanced  at  her  in  weird,  unsmiling 
grimness,  and  betrayed  embarrassment.  It  was  very 
odd,  and  the  bravery  of  her  intentions  was  weakened 
at  their  very  foundations.  She  felt  depressed,  and  she 
was  conscious  of  a  fierce  struggle  to  appear  before  this 
office  in  her  true  and  usual  light.  "He's  armed  with- 
out that's  innocent  within,"  she  remembered ;  but — was 
he?  Then  she  arrayed  her  forces,  bracing  herself  up 
to  present  a  fairly  graphic  substitution  for  Sallie  Syd- 
enham  as  she  used  to  be.  But  Mr.  Green  did  not  speak, 
nor  did  he  help  her  by  gesture  or  relenting  manners. 
The  burden  of  the  position  drooped  heavily  upon  her 
own  unprotected  shoulders. 

"You  have  heard,"  she  began,  "Mr.  Robinson  told 
you,  I  daresay,  that  his  mission  with  Mr.  Sylvester 
Jackson  was  not  successful;  that — that  nobody  was 
found  with  Arthur  Stuyvesant  but" — she  bowed, 
and  clutched  at  her  saving  grace  of  frivolity — "your 
humble  servant.  And" — with  a  laugh — "she — she 
doesn't  count." 

Mr.  Green  played  a  five-finger  exercise  on  his  blot- 
ting-paper, and  kept  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  digital 
process.  She  resented  his  silence,  for  he  was  making 
the  easy  explanation  unnecessarily  difficult.  Had  she 


300  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

been  guilty — had  he  believed  that  she  was  guilty — he 
could  scarcely  have  been  more  unyielding. 

"Well,  Mr.  Green,"  she  went  on,  with  a  laborious 
smile,  "are  you — are  you  angry  ?" 

He  ceased  the  inaudible  five-finger  exercise,  and 
looked  at  her.  A  dull  flush  settled  upon  the  corruga- 
tions of  his  forehead.  His  solemnity  was  lugubrious. 
"I  am  shocked,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  said  slowly.  "I 
am  deeply  mortified.  I  believe  that  I  have  no  very 
definitely  settled  code  of  morality,  but  I  confess  that  I 
am  routed.  I  could  not  have  credited  it.  I  had  looked 
upon  your  work  as  the  result  of  an  unconventional  but 
harmless  point  of  view.  At  least,  I  tried  to  coincide 
with  the  opinion  of  the  office.  I  will  confess  that  there 
have  been  times  when  your  strange,  unveiled  expres- 
sions appeared  to  me  inconsistent  with  the  notion  of — 
er — purity.  I  stifled  this  .  .  .  I — " 

"You  revelled  in  my  'good  stories,'  "  she  interposed 
hotly,  in  the  cruel  marvel  of  topsy-turvydom. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said  with  the  meekness  of  an  Uriah 
Heep.  "That  is  outside  of  the  present  question.  At 
any  rate,  Miss  Sydenham,  my  sentiments  toward  you 
have  always  been  of  the  friendliest.  So  much  so,  that 
Mr.  Robinson's  story  was  an  absolute  shock.  Yet  I 
might  have  put  two  and  two  together — your  strange 
demand  for  this  assignment — your  neglect  to  work  up 
the  case — the  cock-and-bull  story  you  told  me — the  ir- 
regularity and  peculiarity  of  the  entire  proceedings." 

She  was  silent,  and  she  knew  ...  he  had  con- 
demned her.  She  was  unable  to  see  the  force  of  the 
irresistible  tide  of  logic  that  had  swamped  this  man 
who  was  not  innately  unkind.  She  could  only  per- 
ceive the  absurdity  of  the  thing  from  her  own  point  of 
view.  But  her  heart  sank,  for  nothing  was  asked  of 
her.  He  did  not  question  anything  at  all. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  301 

"Then,"  she  said — and  she  struggled  with  a  deaden- 
ing sense  of  calmness — "then — you  really  think — " 

"Come,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  interrupted  bluntly,  "I 
do  not  waste  my  time  with  thinking.  The  situation 
does  not  call  for  thought.  I  presume  that  you  have  not 
come  here  to-night  to  listen  to  my  thoughts.  Indeed, 
I  admit  that  I  am  surprised  to  see  you  at  all.  Your 
advent  here  is  inconceivable  to  me.  You  must  surely 
understand  that  this  very  grave  scandal  is  not  suscepti- 
ble to  vague  discussion,  as  are  the  fictitious  complica- 
tions of  the  many  plays  you  have  dissected.  You — " 

"Oh,"  she  said,  in  swift  affright,  for  she  felt  that 
she  was  being  deliberately  branded — seared  by  the  iron 
of  his  tones,  "you  talk  as  though  you  really  believed  it. 
I  defy  you  to  do  so.  You  cannot — no,  you  cannot — in 
your  heart  of  hearts — really  imagine  that  I — whom  you 
have  known  for  so  long — could  be  so  grossly  depraved. 
You  cannot  suppose  because  I  happened  to  be  the  wom- 
an found  with  Mr.  Stuyvesant,  that  I  was — I  was — 
Oh,  it  is  too  ludicrous !  See  here,  Mr.  Green" — and 
she  evoked  the  puissant  force  of  her  flippancy,  "I  don't 
profess  to  be  a  timid,  blushing  maiden.  I  don't  say 
that  if  I  were  violently  in  love  with  a  man  I  should 
covet  investigation."  (She  thought  that  such  an  ap- 
parently candid  statement  might  militate  in  her  favor 
with  the  owl.)  "But  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  with  a  wife 
and  child — a  reputation  that  cries  out  in  its  nastiness — 
an  actor  to  whom  I  have  always  been  inimical — read 
my  last  article,  Mr.  Green — you  cannot — no,  you  can- 
not possibly  credit  it.  You  may  pretend  to  do  so,  just 
to  get  even  with  me,  for  I  played  you  a  trick,  and  I  was 
not  loyal  to  the  paper.  I  admit  all  this,  Mr.  Green,  but 
there  were  circumstances  that  you  would  be  the  first  to 
understand  and  appreciate,  and  which  you  may  know 
one  of  these  days.  I  may  be  very  beautiful" — she 


302  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

grasped  at  the  last  straw  of  her  frivolity — "but  I  could 
never  be  his." 

Mr.  Green  was  acutely  nettled.  Her  allusion  to  the 
trick  she  had  played  upon  him,  confronting  him  as  it 
did  with  the  unseemly  notion  of  his  own  gullibility, 
angered  him.  It  vexed  him  to  believe  that  the  study 
of  human  nature  in  which  he  had  indulged  for  so  many 
years,  beneath  the  eyes  of  the  blinking  owls,  had  been 
productive  of  a  result  so  lamentable  that  a  mere  girl 
had  been  able  to  bring  him  this  chagrin. 

"We  will  not  argue  the  matter,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he 
remarked.  "All  that  you  say  is  just.  It  is  odious  to 
believe  that  this  contemptible  man  with — as  you  cor- 
rectly suggest — a  reputation  that  cries  out  in  its  nasti- 
ness,  should  have  involved  you  in  such  a  scandal.  But 
the  fact  remains,  and  I  do  not  ask  for  any  explanation, 
for  it  would  be  insufficient,  whatever  it  might  be.  I 
am  shocked — not  precisely  on  your  account — but  on 
that  of  the  paper.  It  is  an  evil  thing  to  discover  that 
the  dramatic  critic  whom  we  have  honored  and  adver- 
tised, and  whose  somewhat  outspoken  work  we  have 
defended  on  grounds  that  now  appear  to  be  grotesquely 
illogical,  has  been  proved  to  be  absolutely  unworthy. 
You  have  supplied  sharp-edged  weapons  to  our  ene- 
mies, and  at  the  same  time  you  have  completely  dis- 
abled your  own  usefulness." 

Then  Sallie,  lacerated  by  the  dull  thrusts  made  so 
deliberately  at  her  position,  felt  that  her  usual  modes 
of  procedure  were  indeed  inadequate.  A  fury  seized 
her,  as  she  watched  the  weaving  of  the  net,  the  meshes 
of  which  she  had  not  clearly  perceived  before.  Her 
vaunted  belief  in  the  chivalry  of  men  and  their  evi- 
dent superiority  to  her  own  sex  was  slipping  away. 

"You    insult    me!"  she    cried    haughtily.     "Every 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  303 

word  you  have  uttered  is  a  gross  affront,  and  not  war- 
ranted by  the  fact  that  you  sit  there  in  some  show  of 
feeble  authority.  I  did  not  suppose  that  you  would 
take  such  a  view  of  the  matter,  or  I  should  never  have 
condescended  to  come  here.  It  is  wicked  and  it  is  in- 
famous. You  judge  me  as  though  I  had  come  in  from 
the  street,  and  you  had  not  enjoyed  ample  opportuni- 
ties for  study.  If,  after  our  long  acquaintance,  you 
can  believe  this  loathsome  thing — then  you  can  believe 
anything.  No  wonder  the  paper  is  plunged  in  libel 
suits"  (he  winced  at  this,  for  it  was  true),  "no  wonder 
that  even  the  public' rebels,  if  this  is  your  way  of  doing 
business.  The  word  of  a  woman  counts  for  something 
surely.  Look  at  me  and  see  if  you  can  detect  any  sign 
of  shame — the  shame  that  even  the  most  abandoned 
woman  would  feel  if  she  had  been  discovered  in  such  a 
dilemma.  Use  your  judgment,  if  you  have  any.  Do 
you  suppose  that  I  should  have  come  here  to  brazenly 
lie  myself  out  of  an  odious  position  ?  Not  I.  I  should 
remain  with  my  lover,  and  upon  him  would  rest  the 
burden  of  the  thing.  Reason  the  matter  out  for  your- 
self. Appearances  may  count  for  a  good  deal,  but  not 
for  everything." 

She  was  beating  her  head  against  a  stone  wall,  and 
she  knew  it.  Mr.  Green  was  not  an  imaginative  man, 
and  hard  facts  were  the  only  commodities  in  which  he 
dealt.  Long  service  in  Owldom  is  not  conducive  to 
the  cultivation  of  imagination.  Occasionally  he  used 
theories — when,  he  felt  that  he  was  not  backed  up  by 
realities;  but  he  discarded  the  theories  as  soon  as  he 
could  conveniently  do  so,  and  never  alluded  to  them. 
Theory  was  the  sickly  procrastination  of  the  really  ig- 
norant. It  was  rank  agnosticism,  and  had  no  abiding 
place  in  Mr.  Green's  lexicon. 


304  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

But  he  was  not  anxious  for  a  "scene;"  he  did  not 
enjoy  the  spectacle  of  the  open-mouthed  reporters  in- 
haling this  contest. 

"Go  on  with  your  work!"  he  cried  savagely  to  the 
owls.  "Attend  to  your  business  and  leave  me  to  mine." 
Then  he  turned  again  to  Miss  Sydenham.  "Of 
course,"  he  said  quietly,  "this  is  all  very  deplorable. 
I  am  hurt  at  your  expressions,  which,  however,  are 
perhaps  to  be  expected.  I  do  not  profess  to  fathom  the 
object  of  your  visit  here.  You  do  not  deserve  any 
consolation.  Still,  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  you  that  this 
painful  incident  closes.  You  are  aware  that  Mr.  Syl- 
vester Jackson  is  a  friend  of  mine,  and  that  being  the 
case,  he  will  make  no  report  to  Mrs.  Stuyvesant.  No," 
he  cried,  lifting  a  restraining  finger  as  she  was  about 
to  speak,  "you  had  better  hear  me  out.  This  detective 
is  under  many  obligations  to  me.  He  is  very  fond  of 
terrapin  stew  and  of  the  good  things  that  Mrs.  Green 
so  thoroughly  understands.  I  have  already  spoken  to 
him  .  .  .  and  everything  ends  right  here.  You  will 
be  saved  the  mortification  of  figuring  publicly  in  a 
lamentable  scandal ;  more  important  still,  there  will  be 
no  public  investigation  of  a  matter  in  which  this  paper 
would  appear  so  unprofitably.  I  am  proud  to  be  able 
to  rescue  my  employers  from  this  unsavory  business. 
Incidentally,  Miss  Sydenham,  you  reap  the  advan- 
tages." 

Sallie's  face  burned.  Never  for  a  single  moment 
had  she  contemplated  this.  The  vital  instinct  of  self- 
preservation — one  of  the  keenest  instincts  within  our 
ken — filled  her  with  an  impulse  to  tell  the  whole  dis- 
graceful story  from  beginning  to  end  and  right  her- 
self. She  owed  it  to  herself  to  do  so.  She  was  being 
labelled  "unclean,"  and  she  felt  the  edges  of  the  label 
moistly  clinging  to  her  personality.  But  another  in- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  305 

stinct,  just  as  keen,  defeated  her — that  of  woman's  love 
for  man.  At  this  juncture  her  loyalty  to  Jack  Childers 
must  not  waver.  She  had  brought  events  to  their  ter- 
minus, and  his  honor  and  his  happiness  were  safe.  It 
would  be  inane  to  upset  the  applecart  as  she  had 
brought  it  over  ruts  and  through  deepnesses  to  destina- 
tion. It  would  be  the  ignominy  of  weakness.  And 
Mr.  Green's  last  words  rendered  that  destination  even 
more  sure.  The  incident  was  closed.  Still,  had  it  been 
left  open,  she  knew  that  she  could  not  have  been 
dragged  into  the  revelation  of  a  divorce  court,  for  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant,  at  any  rate,  understood  the  truth.  But  as 
it  was,  the  peaceful  security  of  her  position  was  un- 
questionable. The  heavy  pall  of  guilt  with  which  she 
had  covered  herself  would  stay  .  .  .  where  she  had 
placed  it.  It  was  detestably  comforting.  It  was  the 
acme  of  good  luck  swathed  in  mother-tincture  of 
irony. 

"Mr.  Jackson  is  most  accommodating,"  she  said,  in 
sullen  resignation.  "It  is  truly  a  beautiful  instance  of 
bribery  and  corruption." 

"A  newspaper  rarely  gets  left,"  he  retorted,  with  a 
smile  at  her  aimless  remark — 'the  feeble  result  of  a  van- 
quished woman's  clamor  for  the  last  word.  "The 
ways  of  journalism  are  unfathomable.  You  may 
thank  your  lucky  stars,  Miss  Sydenham,  that  you  are 
able  to  hide  beneath  its  respectable  cloak." 

"Am  I  to  consider  this  as  final?"  she  asked  miser- 
ably. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "You  are  at  liberty  to 
see  Mr.  Childers,"  he  said.  "Of  course,  I  have  already 
done  so.  Still,  under  the  circumstances,  you  may  feel 
no  repugnance  to  such  an  interview.  If  I  were  you, 
Miss  Sydenham" — and  he  felt  that  this  was  sheer  per- 
sonal kindness,  quite  unwarranted  by  the  obliquity  of 


306  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

the  case,  "I  should  go  quietly  home  and  think  things 
over.  Then,  if  you  still  feel  that  discussion  is  possible, 
I  should  see  Mr.  Childers." 

She  looked  at  him  in  mute  marvel.  He  believed  her 
to  be  utterly  and  irreparably  vile,  but  he  could  still  talk 
to  her  quite  complacently.  He  had  imagined  that  she 
was  something  worse  than  the  worst  thing  she  had  ever 
imagined  .  .  .  yet  he  could  still  parley  indifferently. 

"I  have  no  desire  to  avoid  Mr.  Childers,"  she  said, 
and  her  voice  shook.  "I  am,  at  any  rate,  entitled  to  my 
friends.  Furthermore,  Mr.  Green,  I  have  no  fear  that 
Mr.  Childers  is  so  wretched  a  student  of  human  nature 
as  you  have  proved  yourself  to  be.  Certainly  I  shall 
see  Mr.  Childers." 

He  stood  beside  her.  He  had  entered  the  room  from 
a  door  at  the  further  end,  and  had  listened  to  the  last 
words  that  she  had  uttered.  His  face  was  grave  and 
pale,  and  a  singular  embarrassment  tongue-tied  him 
momentarily. 

"May  I  talk  to  you,  Mr.  Childers?"  she  asked,  look- 
ing bravely  at  him,  with  no  defiance,  but  some  pathetic 
resignation  in  her  eyes. 

He  was  the  managing  editor,  urbane  and  courteous, 
in  an  instant. 

"Certainly,  Miss  Sydenham,"  he  replied.  "Come 
into  my  office,  where  we  shall  be  alone.  I  am  sorry," 
he  added  in  a  low  voice,  as  they  moved  away,  "that 
you  argued  this  horrible  business  with  Mr.  Green. 
Why  subject  yourself  to  needless  mortification?  And 
the  office — the  entire  staff  seems  to  have  been  sitting 
in  judgment." 

She  did  not  answer,  but  followed  him  into  his  office. 
Mr.  Green  quietly  unfolded  the  paper  that  contained 
his  ham  sandwich  and  proceeded  to  discuss  it  in  an  un- 
ruffled way.  It  had  been  very  provoking,  of  course, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  307 

and  he  resented  the  brazen  indifference  to  decent  opin- 
ion that  had  permitted  this  girl  to  come  to  the  office 
and  probe  her  wretched  situation.  It  was  unpardon- 
able ;  but  she  had  never  manifested  any  of  the  delicacy 
of  womanhood.  All  that  she  had  written  and  that  he 
had  applauded — all  her  criticisms  that  he  had  gloated 
over  as  "good  stories"  he  now  turned  against  her,  as 
evidence  pointing  unmistakably  to  a  certain  non-mo- 
rality. He  made  the  mistake,  so  picturesquely  fre- 
quent, of  believing  that  the  pen  is  the  index  of  the 
soul — one  of  the  most  egregious  errors  of  literary 
judgment.  Moreover,  she  wrote  as  she  talked — an- 
other proof  of  her  natural  ribaldry. 

The  reporters  heard  the  door  of  Mr.  Childers'  room 
close.  This  was  a  disappointment,  for  it  cut  them  off 
from  the  last  act  just  as  they  were  vitally  interested. 
It  was  a  case  of  "to  be  continued  in  our  next" — and 
the  door  was  shut  upon  our  next. 

Little  Robinson  put  on  his  hat  and  overcoat,  threw 
aside  his  pen,  took  up  the  story  that  he  had  written — an 
important  account  of  a  ferry-boat  collision,  with  loss 
of  life,  and  made  for  Mr-.  Green's  desk. 

"She  did  not  impress  you,"  he  said,  between  his 
teeth.  "You  heard  her  story  and  you  did  not  believe 
her.  Is  that  correct  ?" 

Mr.  Green,  slowly  masticating  his  sandwich,  gazed 
upon  the  young  reporter  indolently.  "I'm  not  a  fool," 
he  said,  with  his  mouth  full. 

"No,"  cried  Robinson,  indignantly,  "you  are  not  a 
fool,  but  you  are  a  cur  and  a  coward !"  He  lifted  his 
hand,  and,  aiming  a  forceful  blow  at  the  cheek  dis- 
tended by  the  sandwich,  struck  the  night  city  editor 
across  the  face.  Then,  tearing  up  his  story,  he  flung 
the  fragments  of  the  paper  upon  the  editorial  desk. 

There  was  a  sudden  rising  in  the  office,  the  swift 


308  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

perception  of  a  sensation  that  would  live  for  at  least 
a  week  in  Newspaper  Row.  But,  before  Mr.  Green 
could  recover  from  his  amaze — he  was,  moreover,  half 
choked  by  his  sandwich,  impelled  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion— Robinson  had  flung  himself  from  the  room  and 
had  left  Owldom — forever. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

S  the  door  of  Jack  Childers'  office  closed  upon 
her,  Sallie  experienced  her  old-time  sensa- 
tion of  relief  and  encouragement.  The  at- 
mosphere soothed  and  calmed  her  nerves.  It 
acted  upon  her  like  a  sedative,  and  for  a  moment  she 
could  scarcely  realize  that  anything  calamitous  had 
occurred.  How  well  she  knew  this  peaceful  little  sanc- 
tum !  Even  the  pattern  of  the  carpet  on  the  floor  was 
impressed  upon  her  mind.  Nothing  had  been  dis- 
turbed; here  there  was  warmth,  and  quiet,  and  mental 
relaxation.  Even  little  Miss  Poplets,  at  her  type- 
writer, was  an  agreeable  fixture  in  the  luxurious  pla- 
cidity of  things.  Of  course — of  course  little  Miss  Pop- 
lets  knew  everything.  In  the  mysterious  recesses  of 
that  demure  little  mind  the  secrets  of  the  office  were 
stored,  and  ranged,  and  formulated.  Nobody  ever 
dreamed  of  noticing  the  presence  of  Miss  Poplets. 
Even  the  editorial  conference  was  waged  regardless  of 
her  existence.  The  little  typewriter  girl  was  sphinx- 
like  in  her  silence,  and,  not  being  "literary"  or  ambi- 
tious, she  had  no  sympathy  with  the  feminine  owls. 
Often  had  they  tried  to  lure  her  from  her  reserve,  and 
ally  themselves  with  such  a  puissant  source  of  knowl- 
edge. But  little  Miss  Poplets,  dumbly  amiable,  resisted 
their  importunities.  She  was  neither  contemptuous 
nor  arrogant,  but  merely  discreet  and  uninteresting. 
She  preferred  to  sit  day  by  day  and  quietly  worship 
Jack  Childers.  Humorists — who  could  make  thou- 
sands smile,  but  were  unable  to  coax  even  the  faintest 
curve  of  amusement  to  the  lips  of  this  girl — declared 
that  she  said  her  prayers  to  Mr.  Childers,  and  adored 


310  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

him  on  her  knees.  Sallie  was  never  able  to  see  the 
lurking  humor  of  these  remarks.  They  touched  her 
sorely;  she  admired  little  Miss  Poplets  as  Jack  Child- 
ers'  sober  reflection. 

She  was,  therefore,  surprised  by  a  sense  of  shocking 
novelty  when  he  said  quietly:  "If  you  would  prefer 
Miss  Poplets  to  leave  us,  please  say  so,  Miss  Sydenham. 
Would  you  rather  that  we  talked  quite  by  ourselves? 
It  shall  be  as  you  wish." 

He  was  as  courteous  and  as  deferential  as  ever ;  but 
— but — he  called  her  "Miss  Sydenham.  She  was  "Sal- 
lie"  to  him  no  more.  This  trivial  change  affected  her 
strangely  with  a  sense  of  irreparable  loss;  it  was  the 
first  perturbing  sign  that  struck  her  in  the  serene  re- 
pose of  the  room.  She  saw  Miss  Poplets  arise  meekly, 
gather  up  her  papers,  and  prepare,  unquestioningly,  to 
leave  them  alone.  And — and — she  could  not  endure 
the  suggestion  of  the  thing.  She  was  not  a  criminal, 
and  she  had  not  come  to  Jack  Childers  to  defend  her- 
self. 

"No,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  said — there  was  such  a  lump 
in  her  throat! — "let  Miss  Poplets  stay,  please.  There 
is  no  reason  why  she  should  go.  I — I  am  not  ashamed 
of  myself,  nor  do  I  suppose  for  one  moment  that  you 
— that  you" — how  could  she  put  it? — "that  you  share 
the  evident  opinion  of  Mr.  Green." 

Jack  Childers  sat  down  and  passed  his  hand  wearily 
over  his  forehead.  His  smiles  and  his  easy  good  na- 
ture appeared  to  have  left  him.  He  was  gravely  dis- 
concerted; in  all  their  intercourse  she  could  not  recall 
so  drear  a  manifestation  of  discomfture  on  his  part. 
In  the  stress  of  her  jeopardy,  she  felt  sincerely  sorry  for 
him;  it  was  maddening  to  think  that  she — she  who 
loved  him — had  plunged  him  into  this  embarrassment, 
and — odd  paradox — for  his  own  sake,  too !  Little  Miss 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  311 

Poplets  flashed  a  glance  at  her,  and  in  this  look  Sallie 
read  resentment.  The  typewriter  girl  was  also  sorry 
for  Jack  Childers.  Whether  Sallie  were  innocent  or 
guilty  mattered  little;  she  had  perplexed  her  master. 
And  outside  the  owls  blinked,  and  journalism  fought 
its  tough,  crude  fight  while  two  girls  swathed  the 
editor  in  the  warmth  of  devotion  and  solicitude. 

"Why  did  you  do  this  absurd,  this  unnecessary,  this 
wicked  thing?"  he  asked  presently,  breaking  a  silence 
that  enveloped  them  in  a  sort  of  unyielding  wool.  "I 
can't  understand  it.  It  was  cruel — cruel  to  yourself. 
You  had  an  enviable  position;  you  were  a  privileged 
character  in  the  office;  we  all  liked  you,  admired  you, 
gave  you  every  opportunity.  And  you  have  ruined  the 
whole  case.  You  have  done  the  one  unpardonable 
thing — that  which  men  and  women  never  forgive.  It 
is  horrible.  In  all  my  journalistic  experience  I  can 
remember  no  such  bitter  disappointment." 

He  spoke  slowly  and  in  clear,  pellucid  sincerity. 
Were  his  words  those  of  the  managing  editor,  or  of  the 
man?  She  wondered,  as  she  sat  there  bowed  with 
shame,  at  her  own  innocence.  And  a  sense  of  the 
dank  injustice  of  it  all  arose  within  her.  She  was  self- 
pilloried  for  his  sake,  and  he  did  not  appreciate  it.  But 
the  pillory  played  a  blithe  game  of  ping-pong  between 
herself  and  Ivy  Hampton.  Later  it  would  be  driven 
home  to  Miss  Hampton.  She  must  wait  and  suffer. 

"You  will  understand  later  on,"  she  dared  to  say — 
for  she  had  earned  the  right  to  such  a  feeble  luxury  of 
expression.  "In  the  meantime,  you  know — oh,  of 
course  you  know — the  deception  of  the  appearance. 
Think  of  it,  Mr.  Childers.  Picture  the  position  I  was 
in — and  how  grotesque  it  really  was." 

He  winced,  but  looked  at  her  searchingly,  and 
seemed  to  penetrate  her  subliminal  depths. 


312  A   Girl  Who  Wrote 

"That  is  not  the  point,"  he  said  severely.  "What- 
ever the  reasons  that  prompted  your  appearance  at  Mr. 
Stuyvesant's  rooms,  the  fact  remains  that  you  were 
found  there,  and  that  the  circumstances  and  the  sur- 
roundings were  damning  in  the  eyes  of  the  world." 

"I  don't  care  about  the  world !"  she  cried  fiercely — 
and  little  Miss  Poplets  quaked.  "As  long  as  you  be- 
lieve in  me,  and  will  continue  to  do  so,  what  do  I  mind  ? 
Nothing.  And  you  do  believe  in  me,  Mr.  Childers,  of 
course.  The  whole  thing  is  so  perfectly  ridiculous — " 

He  held  up  his  hand.  "Yes,"  he  said  quickly.  "But 
you  do  not  understand,  Miss  Sydenham.  It  is  marvel- 
lous that  a  girl  so  keen,  so  alert,  with  such  an  orderly 
mind  as  you  possess,  should  fail  to  perceive  the  real 
gravity  of  your  action.  Personally  I  agree  with  you 
that  the  supposition  of  the  world — headed  by  Mr. 
Green — is  ridiculous.  You  could  never  be  guilty  of 
such  foolish  misconduct;  your  sense  of  humor  would 
be  your  saving  grace ;  the  pettiness,  the  squalor  of  the 
thing  would  deter  you.  You  would — " 

"Stop,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  commanded.  "Is  that  all  ? 
Are  those  the  only  reasons  you  can  find  for  your  belief 
in  my  innocence?  What  of  my  morality?  What  of 
my  sentiment?  Do  you  think  I  am  devoid  of  these? 
Do  you  suppose  because  I  have  written  lightly — and 
that  you  have  laughed  at  my  unconventional  expres- 
sions— that  I  have  no  moral  sense?  Apart  from  the 
ludicrous  side  of  this  supposition,  do  you  believe  that 
nothing  but  a  sense  of  humor  would  have  saved  me? 
Do  you  consider  that  I  retain  my  virtue  in  this  matter 
simply  because  it  would  have  been  foolish  and  serious 
— unfunny — to  have  lost  it?" 

She  rose  and  faced  him,  her  eyes  flashing.  She  had 
discarded  her  pitiful  ruse  of  make-up,  and  she  stood  be- 
fore him  an  ordinary  girl,  the  weapons  with  which  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  313 

had  compelled  the  inexorable  attention  of  journalism 
cast  aside.  All  her  flippancy,  all  the  characteristics 
that  she  had  worn  so  flamboyantly  as  the  livery  of  Owl- 
dom — or  of  her  conception  of  the  part — had  vanished. 
He  saw  that  she  was  pretty,  earnest,  real — and  perhaps 
he  had  seen  all  this  before  in  dim,  sub-conscious  reve- 
lation. Perhaps,  unconsciously,  his  soul  had  read  hers. 

"I  have  not  allowed  my  personal  sentiments  to  weigh 
in  this  matter,"  he  replied  uncomfortably.  "If  the 
question  were  one  that  could  be  settled  between  us — 
between  you  and  me,  Sallie" — (thank  goodness  for  the 
"Sallie,"  she  thought) — "I  should  dismiss  it  imme- 
diately. But  it  is  not.  You  have  placed  yourself  in 
a  position  from  which  all  my  beliefs  and  convictions 
would  be  powerless  to  rescue  you.  You  know  the 
world,  and  you  have  given  it  a  knife  to  use  against 
yourself.  It  is  a  miserable  business,  and  it  is  not  mere- 
ly for  'business'  reasons — because  you  were  valuable 
to  the  newspaper — that  I  regret  it." 

"But,"  she  cried — for  she  had  but  one  objective 
point,  "you  have  not  answered  me.  You  do  not  think 
me  immoral.  You  do  not  believe  that  even — suppos- 
ing I  had  been  in  love  with  Arthur  Stuyvesant — I  could 
have  sunk  to  such  a  level.  You  have  always  called  me 
a  jolly  good  fellow,  but  still — still,  in  your  soul  you 
looked  upon  me  as  a  woman — and  not  as  a  bad  woman. 
Tell  me  that,  and  do  not  lie.  If  you  have  really  ever 
thought — or  if  you  think  now — that  it  was  not  beyond 
me  to  give  myself  in  this  way  to  a  man,  tell  me,  Mr. 
Childers.  When  you  called  me  a  jolly  good  fellow  did 
you  mean  that  my  real  sex,  with  modesty  and  shame 
and  virtue,  was  extinct?" 

Her  anxiety  was  so  real  in  its  far-reaching,  unfet- 
tered reality,  that  little  Miss  Poplets  instantly  gave  her 
a  share  of  the  wide  allegiance  that  had  been  exclusively 


314  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Jack  Childers'.  She  waited  breathlessly  for  him  to 
speak;  the  clicking  of  the  type-writer  ceased.  Little 
Miss  Poplets'  nimble  fingers  were  stayed  in  a  paralysis 
of  expectancy. 

Jack  Childers  was  confronted  with  a  problem  that  he 
had  not  contemplated.  He  had  not  felt  called  upon 
to  appraise  the  stability  of  Sallie  Sydenham's  virtue. 
He  had  known — as  he  said  that  he  had  known — that  in 
this  case  some  weird  kaleidoscopic  twist  of  the  proba- 
bilities had  been  dead  against  her,  and  that  her  good 
sense,  her  conviviality,  even  her  rampant  Bohemianism, 
would  have  rendered  this  smug  and  sordid  liaison 
wholly  impossible.  Nor  for  a  solitary  moment  had  he 
doubted  her  innocence.  But  he  had  not  asked  himself 
whether  his  conviction  covered  a  faith  in  the  rigidity 
of  her  virtue,  or  in  the  fixedness  of  conscientious  femi- 
nine scruples.  He  had  never  attempted  to  consider  her 
in  any  other  light  than  that  of  the  insistent  "jolly  good 
fellow."  He  felt  sure — yes,  he  was  quite  certain — that 
her  sex  had  never  counted  for  anything  in  his  super- 
ficial estimate  of  her  many  admirable  qualities. 

It  had  never  occurred  to  him,  or  he  believed  that  it 
had  never  occurred  to  him  (for  Jack  Childers  utilized 
but  one  stratum  of  entity,  and  that  lay  on  the  top)  to 
regard  her  from  the  point  of  view  of  sex.  Of  course 
— he  supposed — the  fact  that  she  was  a  woman  had  lent 
a  certain  piquancy  to  the  bizarre  fact  of  their  daily  in- 
tercourse. Nothing  more.  There  were  no  subtleties 
in  Sallie  Sydenham.  And  so  ...  he  heard  her  query 
and  he  answered  it  frankly. 

"I  have  never  asked  myself  such  questions,  Sallie," 
he  said.  "You  see — there  was  no  reason  to  do  so.  And 
— when  I  heard  this  miserable  story,  of  course  I  knew 
that  you  were  the  victim  of  circumstances.  I  did  not 
go  into  the  subtleties  of  the  matter — I  had  not  time — it 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  315 

has  only  just  happened.  The  point  was,  not  whether 
you  would  or  could  have  been  guilty  .  .  .  but  merely 
that  you  had  given  the  world  a  cue  to  believe  that  you 
were." 

This  was  plausible  .  .  .  but  he  had  not  answered  her 
question,  and  she  would  force  him  to  answer  it ; 
and  if  he  told  her  that  his  faith  in  her  virtue  was  non- 
existent— or  if  he  expressed  the  contrary  opinion  in 
courteous  uncertainty  and  evident  lack  of  conviction — 
then — then  she  would  be  revenged.  She  would  hurl 
at  him  the  words:  "Well,  it  was  Ivy  Hampton,  your 
cousin,  in  this  particular  case.  You  can  reason  about 
me,  but  you  can  be  quite  certain  of  her."  Yes,  she 
would  do  it.  Because  if  he  told  her  what  she  dreaded 
to  hear — that  he  had  no  certain  belief  in  her  purity — 
she  would  hate  him  in  swift  metamorphosis.  All  that 
she  had  done  she  would  undo.  She  would  paralyze 
him  with  the  truth. 

But  Jack  Childers,  as  her  question  sank  into  his  soul, 
knew.  He  realized  then,  and  he  imagined  it  was  for 
the  first  time,  that  this  girl,  light  in  her  expressions, 
loose  in  her  superficial  outfit,  loud  in  her  bark,  was 
staunch  in  her  virtue.  He  looked  into  her  eyes,  and 
was  amazed  at  the  depths  of  truth  in  them. 

"Do  you  think  I  could  have  been  guilty?"  She 
would  have  his  answer.  He  could  not  dilly-dally  her 
away  from  it.  She  was  on  trial  before  her  managing 
editor,  but  she  would  rout  out  the  man. 

And  he  quickly  responded  in  sheer,  certain  tones : 
"No.  I  do  not  think  it.  I  believe  in  you,  Sallie,  and 
you  must  forgive  my  professional  words.  After  all, 
we  have  been  something  more  than  business  associates 
— you  and  I.  We  have  been  friends.  You  have  a 
right  to  probe  me.  As  a  man,  I  do  not  believe  that 


316  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

you  could  have  done  this  .  .  .  because — you  are  a 
right-minded,  chaste  woman." 

Little  Miss  Poplets,  moved  from  her  habitual  atti- 
tude of  devotional  acquiescence,  could  not  repress  her 
satisfaction;  nor  did  she  attempt  to  do  so.  She  mur- 
mured :  "It  is  true ;  yes,  it  is  true,"  and  then  subsided 
meekly.  It  was  the  first  time  that  she  had  ever  made 
manifest  a  separate  intelligence.  Jack  Childers  was 
amazed.  Sallie,  in  her  tingle  of  emotion,  realized  the 
unusual.  , 

"I  am  so  glad,"  Sallie  said  presently.  "And — now 
nothing  matters.  The  entire  office  may  chatter  and 
condemn  me  and  I  shall  not  complain.  It  is,  of  course, 
what  the  entire  office  will  do — I  readily  perceive  that 
by  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Green — if  the  story  should  leak 
out." 

"If  it  should  leak  out!"  he  cried.  "It  has  done  so. 
Unfortunately,  when  little  Robinson  made  his  report 
to  Mr.  Green,  Miss  Eisenstein  was  with  the  night  city 
editor.  I  need  not  say  any  more;  had  the  story  been 
advertised  on  the  dead  walls  of  the  city  it  could  scarcely 
have  been  more  surely  advertised.  I  am  sorry,  deeply 
grieved,  Sallie.  We  might  have  managed  to  hush  it 
up,  but  now — " 

"But  now,"  she  repeated,  and  she  smiled  rather 
wanly,  because  although  she  should  have  revelled  in 
her  martyrdom,  and  carried  the  matter  to  its  bitter  end 
unflinchingly,  she  could  not  do  it — "but  now  it  is  all 
up,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Childers?  Sallie  Sydenham  is  retired 
for  the  present,  and  any  allusion  to  her  tarnished  name 
will  be  tabooed." 

He  was  lost  in  pained  thought.  He  had  spoken 
the  truth  when  he  announced  the  fact  that  never  in  all 
his  journalistic  career  had  he  known  such  a  bitter  dis- 
appointment. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  317 

"Don't  you  think,"  he  said  presently,  "that  you  could 
tell  me — as  a  friend  still,  and  not  as  a  managing  editor 
— what  were  the  reasons  that  led  you  to  Arthur  Stuyve- 
sant's  rooms." 

She  might  have  expected  this,  for  it  was  completely 
relevant.  But  it  took  her  by  surprise  and  gave  her 
another  pang.  "  There  was  a  reason,"  she  said 
evasively,  "but  I  cannot  tell  you  what  it  was  to-day. 
Some  day,  perhaps — " 

Some  day,  perhaps !  The  soothing  recollection  of 
Arthur  Stuyvesant  rushed  to  her  aid.  Something 
would  happen,  and  her  release  would  come.  She  had 
infinite  faith  in  the  actor's  words,  although  he  had 
proved  himself  to  be  despicable  in  all  directions. 

"I  will  wait,"  he  said  patiently.  "I  presume,  from 
your  manner,  that  I  should  understand  your  reasons." 

She  nearly  laughed.  If  he  would  understand  her 
reasons  !  Yes,  they  would  be  very  patent.  He  would 
understand  her  reasons  .  .  .  and  perhaps  other  things. 
But  what  did  it  signify?  One  of  these  days  he 
might  even  realize  that  she  loved  him ;  that  no  woman 
would  run  her  neck  into  such  a  noose  for  any  other 
cause  but  the  all-powerful  one.  However,  she  would 
no  longer  be  there,  in  daily  intercourse  with  him.  It 
would  not  matter.  Spartan  endurance  is  very  spec- 
tacular, but  the  woman  who  loves  need  experience  no 
shrinking  horror  if  the  object  of  her  devotion  be  able  to 
sound  her  depths.  In  plays — in  novels — a  secret  car- 
ried to  the  grave  is  a  worthy  notion.  But  Sallie  was 
so  wretchedly  human,  so  plaintively  real ! 

She  replied  to  his  last  words  with  a  half  smile.  "Yes, 
you  would  understand,"  she  said.  She  wondered  what 
his  sensations  would  be.  Of  course,  he  would  admire 
her  loyalty,  and  think  splendid  things  of  her  sacrifice. 
But  .  .  .  but  ...  he  would  probably  say  "Poor  girl !" 


318  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

and  feel  distinctly  sorry  for  her.  The  knowledge  of 
Ivy's  shame  would  for  a  time  overshadow  all  thoughts ; 
but  he  would  recover  from  that.  He  was  not  irretriev- 
ably in  love  with  his  cousin,  and  he  would  probably 
grow  accustomed  to  the  rupture  of  the  matrimonial 
scheme.  And  when  the  new  outlook  had  been  firmly 
established  .  .  .  then,  then  what  would  he  think  of 
her?  Perhaps  he  would  laugh  at  the  discovery  that 
his  "jolly  good  fellow"  had  sailed  under  false  colors ; 
that  throughout  their  long  Bohemian  communion  she 
had  been  madly  in  love  with  him.  And  as  this  idea 
flashed  into  her  mind  she  grew  hot  and  cold  by  turns. 
The  sky  even  now  was  murky  with  unsolvable  clouds. 
The  sun — her  sun — would  it  never  shine  again? 

"And  now,  Mr.  Childers,"  she  said — she  rose  with 
beating  heart  and  throbbing  pulse,  for  the  end  had 
come — "I  won't  ask  you  what  I  had  better  do.  There 
is  nothing  more.  Please  allow  me  to  'tender  my  res- 
ignation,' as  the  defaulting  employe  remarks  when  he 
has  been  found  out.  Permit  me  to  get  ahead  of  you, 
and — to  go  before  I  am  kicked  out,"  she  added  inele- 
gantly. 

He  picked  up  a  penholder  and  bit  it  to  a  pulp.  He 
tried  to  readjust  his  position  as  managing  editor,  which 
had  skulked  behind  the  weakness  of  the  man. 

"You  put  it  bluntly,  Sallie,"  he  said.  "Curse  it  all ! 
What  an  infernal  shame  it  is.  No,"  impatiently.  "I 
can't  imagine  any  conceivable  reason  that  you  could 
have  had  for  this  folly.  It  is  devilish.  It  is  a  great 
loss  to  the  paper.  I — " 

"Thank  you,"  Sallie  murmured  in  a  low  voice,  and 
her  eyes  were  moist.  "You  are  kind,  and  I  appreciate 
it ;  but  things  are  as  they  are,  and  I  see  that  departure 
is  the  only  thing  left." 

"Yes,"  he  retorted  viciously.     "Yes,  of  course  you 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  319 

must  not  stay.  This  is  a  hard  world,  and  there  is  one 
thing  beyond  the  hope  of  possible  salvation.  It  is  the 
thing — that  you  have  seemed  to  do.  I  must  let  you 
go.  Under  the  circumstances,  it  seems  cruel  and 
odious.  Had  you  been  really  guilty  ...  it  would  have 
been  easier.  It  would  not  have  been  so  ...  so  pain- 
ful." 

"Don't  say  that!"  she  cried  aghast  (and  she  heard 
little  Miss  Poplets  murmur,  "Oh,  no!").  "If  I  had 
been  guilty,  your  duty  as  Jack  Childers,  managing  ed- 
itor, would  have  been  simplified.  But  then  you  would 
have  despised  and  hated  me.  Wouldn't  you? 
Wouldn't  you,  Mr.  Childers?" 

The  same  question  had  returned.  She  was  tired  of 
this  emotional  analysis,  and  she  could  see  that  it  hurt 
him.  Still,  she  had  suffered,  and  was  suffering,  more 
than  mere  hurt,  and  she  would  not  spare  him  this 
really  trivial  distress. 

"You  are  a  strange  girl,  Sallie,"  he  said  gloomily. 
"You  will  persist  in  unearthing  me  as  a  man,  when  the 
serious  question  is  a  professional  one.  But — but  I  am 
glad,  old  girl,  to  know  that  this  dark  and  unfathomable 
cloud — is  only  a  cloud.  I  shall  always  remember  the 
good  times  we  have  had  together — our  jolly  old  rides 
uptown — and  ...  it  is  consoling  to  know  that  nothing 
has  really  happened.  Yes — yes — it  would  have  been 
hateful  if  you  had  actually  been  what — for  some  mys- 
terious cause  you  have  allowed  yourself  to  appear.  I 
— I  won't  speak  as  managing  editor  again.  You  are 
going,  and  I  will  only  tell  you — since  it  is  all  you  care 
to  know — how  awfully  cut  up  I  am — as  your  friend." 

Miss  Poplets  rose  and  took  her  hat  and  coat  from 
their  peg.  She  put  them  on  furtively,  and  then,  with 
a  quiet  "good-night,"  she  went  softly  out  and  closed 
the  door.  They  scarcely  noticed  her  action,  and  the 


320  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

shutting  of  the  door  sounded  loud  and  strangely  sug- 
gestive of  finality. 

"Good-bye,"  said  Sallie,  suddenly.  "I  must  be  off. 
It  is  late." 

He  motioned  her  back.  "Stop!"  He  cleared  his 
throat.  "You  have  made  me  sink  the  managing  ed- 
itor to  suit  your  own  views.  And  now  I  must  keep 
him  down,  to  accommodate  my  own  notion.  What  are 
you  going  to  do  ?  How  are  you  going  to  live  ?  Have 
you  any  money?" 

She  shrank  from  these  questions,  that  she  had  not 
foreseen.  But  she  could  not  squelch  him  as  her  friend 
when  she  had  been  so  persistently  evoking  the  shades 
of  their  comradeship. 

"I  shall  fall  on  my  feet,"  she  said  softly.  "I  am  not 
afraid  ...  I  am  horribly  healthy." 

"You  must  let  me  lend  you  some  money,"  he  as- 
serted, "and — and  you  can  pay  me  back  later.  Don't 
argue,  please.  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  this  busi- 
ness of  journalism,  and  how  a  sudden  lay-off  from 
work — for  a  day,  perhaps — is  a  thing  impossible  ?  Yes, 
you  must  let  me  help  you.  Otherwise,  I  shall  believe 
that  you  never  credited  my  friendship  with  any  staying 
power." 

This  was  just  .  .  .  and  she  knew  it.  But  nothing 
— nothing  would  induce  her  to  accept  such  aid.  She 
did  not  want  him  to  pity  her,  and  she  would  not  permit 
him  to  dole  out  dollars  to  her.  It  would  be  too  de- 
grading. 

"If  I  ever  need  anything,"  she  said  hastily,  "I  will 
ask  you — yes,  I  will.  At  present  I  am  perfectly  com- 
fortable. I  have  been  drawing  a  large  salary — and  I 
can  live  for  some  time.  It  is  very  kind  of  you  .  .  . 
but  ...  I  need  nothing." 

"Honestly?" 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  321 

"Honestly,"  she  replied,  with  a  lie  that  she  deemed 
justifiable. 

"And — and  when  affairs  are  straightened  out,"  he 
went  on,  "as  they  will  be,  for  you  have  said  so — you 
will  come  back?  You  must.  We  cannot  get  along 
without  you.  It  will  be  a  dull  and  lifeless  paper,  and 
the  drama — the  poor  old  drama — will  go  to  the  dogs. 
You  will  come  back,  Sallie,  of  course  ?" 

She  nodded,  for  she  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak. 
But  she  knew  in  her  soul  that  this  was  the  end,  the  final 
moment  of  her  association  with  Owldom.  Never  again 
would  she  return  to  it,  or  join  the  severed  ends  of  her 
career.  It  was  her  last  day,  and  this  certain  knowledge 
was  driven  like  a  nail  into  her  heart.  Perhaps  he  knew 
it,  too,  but  thought  that  dissimulation  was  wiser. 

"Shall  we  ride  uptown  together — to-night?"  he 
asked,  but  he  did  not  look  at  her.  "I  shall  be  ready  in 
half  an  hour." 

"Not  to-night,"  she  answered.  "I — I  must  go  now. 
Good-night.  Good-bye." 

She  made  a  brave  effort,  as  he  took  her  hand,  to  save 
the  situation  from  a  drenching  flow  that  she  felt  to  be 
imminent.  It  was  an  almost  superhuman  effort — but 
she  achieved  it.  He  held  her  hand  for  a  long  time,  and 
this  long,  unusual  contact  thrilled  her.  It  was  new 
to  her  ...  a  sort  of  splendid  revelation  that,  for  a 
second,  she  thought  was  worth  the  winning  through  all 
these  long  and  troublous  paths. 

"I  shall  hear  of  you?"  he  said  interrogatively,  as  he 
loosened  his  clasp  upon  her  fingers.  Again  she  nodded. 
Then  she  left  him  suddenly,  and  opening  the  door, 
passed  out.  Her  courage  waned,  her  strength  drooped, 
and  she  stopped  on  the  stairs  to  give  way  to  irrepressi- 
ble grief.  It  was  inevitable.  How  could  she  leave 
Owldom — dear  old  Owldom,  with  its  joys  and  its  sor- 


322  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

rows,  its  mirth  and  its  chagrin,  its  hopes  and  its  dis- 
appointments, its  humiliations  and  its  ambitions,  its  fa- 
tigues and  its  recuperations — forever? 

Nevermore!  Nevermore!  Nevermore!  The  word 
rang  in  her  ears  loud  and  irrevocable.  Her  last  ap- 
pearance !  And  she  was  playing  it  alone.  Not  a  foot- 
step but  her  own  clanked  on  the  stone  stairs.  Nobody 
saw  her  write  the  "finis"  to  her  journalistic  chapter. 
On  the  very  last  step  of  all  she  stood  for  a  second,  then 
— then  it  was  all  over. 

She  ploughed  her  way  across  City  Hall  Park  without 
looking  back.  She  shrank  from  the  stony  gaze  of  Ben 
Franklin  and  of  Greeley,  cold  sentinels  though  they 
were.  Her  emancipation  from  Owldom's  thrall  was 
complete. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

|VIL  news  rides  post,  while  good  news  halts." 
The  feminine  owls  flapped  their  wings  and 
shrieked  as  Miss  Sydenham's  story  spread 
through  the  office  like  a  forest  fire.  The 
flames  were  started  by  Rita  Eisenstein,  who,  sensa- 
tional and  rampant,  realized  the  importance  of  her 
mission  and  neglected  none  of  the  details  of  the  his- 
tory. Never  before  had  she  known  the  alluring  lux- 
ury of  watching  an  excited  group  hanging  upon  her 
every  word,  ravenously  pouncing  upon  the  crumbs  that 
she  threw,  and  with  eyes  wide,  hopes  alert,  minds  re- 
ceptive, crying,  "More !  More !"  She  flung  the  sorry 
matter  at  them,  deftly  saving  up  tit-bits  for  the  most 
effective  moments,  dramatically  nurturing  an  eblouis- 
sant  finale,  zealously  guarding  against  the  corrosive 
influence  of  anti-climax ;  in  a  word,  making  the  most 
of  an  exceptional  opportunity  in  an  ecstasy  of  spite, 
vindictiveness,  and  malevolent  gossip. 

It  was  a  proud  moment  in  Miss  Eisenstein's  life. 
"Foule  byrd  that  fyleth  his  owne  nest,"  she  threw 
down  the  reputation  of  the  poor  little  twitterer  that 
she  hated  so  malignantly,  and  the  others  swooped 
upon  it,  pecked  at  it,  and  tore  it  to  pieces.  Dark,  glow- 
ering birds,  their  carrion  instincts  let  loose  by  an  occa- 
sion wide  open  and  obvious,  all  the  savagery  of  jeal- 
ousy, offended  pride,  affected  contempt  suddenly  re- 
leased, they  tore  at  the  white,  healthy  stretches  that 
still  remained  in  the  poor  feeble  thing  called  "good 
name,"  and  blackened  them  miasmatically. 

No  rosy  hopes  crowned  with  the  luminous  laurels 
of  realization  could  have  brought  a  tenser  joy  to  palpi- 


324  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

tant  bosoms  than  did  the  history  of  Sallie's  martyr- 
dom to  the  breasts  of  the  feminine  owls.  They  had  a 
solemn,  portentous  conference,  in  which  the  veriest  de- 
tails were  investigated,  the  curtains  all  drawn  up,  and 
searchlights  turned  into  the  obscurity  of  corners. 
Where  novelists  write  asterisks,  and  playwrights  pose 
suggestive  interrogations,  the  ladies  of  Owldom 
prowled  and  paraded,  nostrils  all  a-flare,  heads  proudly 
erect,  imaginations  peeled  for  receptivity. 

Rochefoucauld,  in  an  eczema  of  maxims,  might  have 
gleaned  a  few  more  from  this  richly  fertile  field.  The 
resignation  with  which  the  owls  bore  the  misfortunes 
of  their  sister  might  have  startled  him.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  affair  had  been  threshed  out  in  all  its  bearings, 
that  the  beautiful,  pallid  spirit  of  resignation  hovered. 
Before  that,  no  attempt  was  made  to  conceal  wild  in- 
stincts of  delight.  These  women  forgot  to  pose  before 
one  another  in  the  prescribed  garbs  of  their  affectation. 
They  stood,  naked  and  unashamed,  in  the  sheer,  undi- 
luted daylight.  It  was  not  until  later  that  they  pro- 
ceeded to  array  themselves  in  the  character  costumes 
they  wore  so  picturesquely.  They  had  forgotten  their 
respective  roles  .  .  .  they  had  slipped  from  the  parts 
that  they  played  to  the  realities  that  they  were.  And 
gradually  they  pulled  themselves  together,  recalled 
their  relative  postures,  and,  recovered  from  the  panic 
of  joy  that  had  torn  the  rags  from  their  backs,  they 
were  themselves  again,  in  all  their  placid,  purring 
hypocrisy. 

"It  will  be  a  great  blow  to  the  paper,"  said  Anastasia 
Atwood,  who  had  come  to  the  office  in  a  black  gown 
and  a  mourning  brooch,  in  sorrow  for  virtue  lost  for- 
ever. "The  terrible  weapon  that  this  woman — note, 
Amelia,  that  I  still  call  her  a  woman — has  placed  in 
the  hands  of  our  enemies  may  stab  the  life  from  us. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  325 

Harry,  this  morning,  suggested  that  I  resign,  as  al- 
though the  cause  of  evil  has  been  removed,  the  stigma 
remains.  But  I  told  him — my  poor,  cherishing  Harry 
— that  now,  in  the  hour  of  its  need,  I  will  not  desert  my 
paper.  Nay.  I  will  stand  by  it  in  this,  its  direst  tribu- 
lation. 'Twould  be  cowardly  to  fly  now — when  the 
signals  of  distress  are  hoisted.  I  forced  Harry  to 
agree  with  me.  Painful  though  it  be,  repulsive  though 
this  atmosphere  of  carnal  taint  may  prove  ...  I  shall 
stay.  I  shall  struggle  against  my  impulse,  battle  with 
my  fierce  desire  for  solitude  and  peace  .  .  .  and  re- 
main !" 

Lamp-Post  Lucy,  in  glossy  Wellingtons,  able  to 
plough  through  mire  of  a  more  than  metaphorical  kind, 
laughed.  "I  wish  I'd  thought  of  that,  Anatasia,"  she 
said — her  equanimity  had  soon  returned,  like  chickens, 
to  roost.  "It  is  clever,  and  if  I  were  you,  I  should 
write  it.  They  will  raise  your  salary,  and,  although 
you  don't  need  sordid  inducements  of  that  sort,  still,  it 
would  be  handy  to  have  in  the  house.  Personally,  I 
shall  try  and  overcome  my  horror  at  these  events.  I 
shall  endeavor  to  cultivate  pity  for  the  poor,  aban- 
doned wretch  of  a  girl.  I  shall  try  to  believe — it  will 
be  hard,  of  course — that  such  things  might,  in  un- 
guarded moments,  have  happened  to  any  of  us — " 

"Stay!"  cried  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson, 
majestically  bringing  a  corrugated  hand  violently  into 
contact  with  her  desk.  "Pause,  Lucy,  in  your  sweep- 
ing charity.  You  will  try  to  believe  that  such  things 
might  have  happened  to  any  of  us  ?  To  me  ?  You  dare 
suggest — to  me  ?  You  would  intimate  that  I  have  mo- 
ments, so  strangely  unguarded,  that  my  reputation 
could  imperil  itself,  and  my  fair  name  waver?  Do  not 
say  it.  Never  say  it.  You  mean  well,  and  your  senti- 
ment is  a  pretty  one — like  Mrs.  Atwood's.  But  do  not 


326  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

impugn  the  chastity  of  your  associates  in  your  pardon- 
able desire  to  advertise  yourself.  Do  not  profess  to  be- 
lieve that  which  could  never  be.  I  have  always  been 
considered  an  impregnable  rock — even  in  my  younger 
days,"  she  added,  reluctantly,  for  it  seemed  rather  silly 
to  allude  to  them,  "and  now — I  refuse  to  be  included  in 
a  category  such  as  that  you  so  readily  mention." 

Their  equanimity  was  certainly  restored,  for  they 
could  now  turn  upon  each  other,  facon  Kilkenny,  and 
bicker  exuberantly. 

"Atkinson  Smith  wanted  to  discuss  the  matter  with 
me,  this  morning,"  said  Happy  Hippy,  who  exhaled  a 
more  than  usually  stimulating  odor  of  stewed  violets. 
"Positively,  he  imagined  that  I  could  really  talk  the 
matter  over.  So  I  said  to  him,  'My  dear  man,  I  have 
never  objected  to  commenting  upon  the  written  ribal- 
dry of  this — er — creature,  but  I  cannot  bring  myself 
to — er — an  analysis  of  her  real  misdemeanors — with 
you,  at  any  rate.  You  see,"  she  added,  with  a  laugh, 
"it's  no  good  allowing  men  to  think  that  we  even  under- 
stand such  iniquities.  Of  course,  we  understand  them 
— but  I  never  believe  in  permitting  the  other  sex  to 
know  it." 

Happy  Hippy  smoothed  down  her  figure,  that  seemed 
to  be  growing  restive,  and  coaxed  back  a  hip  from  its 
apparent  travels  round  her  anatomy.  Satisfied  virtue 
was  expressed  in  her  face.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Happy 
Hippy  was  a  diplomat,  and  the  dangerous  topic  pro- 
jected by  poor  Sallie  had  been  used  very  effectively  by 
her.  For  she  knew  that  men,  once  turned  to  such  dis- 
cussions with  women,  unbent  marvellously.  It  had 
been  a  source  of  great  pleasure  to  Happy  Hippy. 

"If  Miss  Sydenham  had  only  possessed  a  mother!" 
sighed  Mamie  Munson,  always  willing  to  drag  in  her 
own  obese,  black-alpaca  parent.  "We  should  be  more 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  327 

charitable,"  she  went  on,  "in  view  of  the  fact  that  she 
is  alone  in  the  world.  That  is  what  mommer  said.  At 
first  she  wanted  me  to  resign,  as  she  thought  that  such 
influences  in  an  office  were  dangerous.  She  cried  bit- 
terly for  at  least  two  hours,  and  I  had  hard  work  to 
keep  her  from  coming  here  and  begging  Mr.  Childers 
to  release  me.  But  I  prevailed  upon  her  at  last  to  let 
me  remain.  In  time,  I  suppose,  we  shall  forget  these 
dreadful  events.  Time  heals  all  wounds,"  she  added 
epigrammatically,  with  copy-book  fervor.  And,  after 
all,  what  epigrams  of  Montaigne,  Chincholle,  or  Vau- 
venargues  give  as  much  solid  satisfaction  to  the  illiter- 
ate as  ...  the  copy-book  ? 

Miss  Eva  Higgins  was  writing  an  interview  with 
the  mother  of  a  girl  who  had  been  accused  of  murder- 
ing her  lover  in  one  of  the  squalid  "Raines  law"  hotels 
of  the  city.  She  had  already  composed  a  splendid  arti- 
cle, in  which  this  mother — a  stout,  uneducated  Irish- 
woman, named  O'Flaherty — had  said  pathetic  things, 
full  of  the  philosophy  of  Diderot  and  the  inspired 
poetry  of  Shakespeare.  In  reality,  Miss  Higgins  had 
discovered  that  Mrs.  O'Flaherty  was  singularly  ad- 
dicted to  incoherent  utterances,  beginning  with  "Be- 
gorrah!"  But  of  what  use  is  the  feminine  owl,  if  it 
be  not  to  idealize,  to  beautify,  and  to  educate?  Miss 
Higgins  was  an  adept.  But  she  was  not  inclined  to 
view  the  "Sydenham  case,"  as  she  called  it,  with  leni- 
ent eyes. 

"I  have  no  doubt,"  she  said,  pausing — she  had  just 
made  Mother  O'Flaherty  say,  "One  should  let  the 
world  feed  when  it  is  hungry,  and  on  the  food  for 
which  it  craves" — "I  have  no  doubt  but  that  this  Syd- 
enham woman  might  have  been  discovered  in  her 
crimes  long  ago.  I,  for  one,  don't  believe  that  Arthur 
Stuyvesant  was  the  first.  One  reaches  a  man  of  that 


328  A  Girl   Who  Wrote 

sort" — with  a  laugh — "by  easy  stages.  For  all  that 
we  know  to  the  contrary,  we  have  been  inhaling  this 
horrible  atmosphere  for  months,  and  Miss  Sydenham's 
decollete  style  has  been  due  to  the  most  obviously 
decollete  habits.  That  is  my  opinion." 

"Miss  Higgins  is  right,"  declared  Mrs.  Amelia  Am- 
berg  Hutchinson.  "The  mask  has  been  torn  off  in 
time.  The  creature  is  bad  to  the  core,  and  if  this 
particular  discovery  had  not  taken  place,  goodness 
knows  what  might  not  have  happened.  Let  us  be 
thankful.  Hard  and  cruel  though  this  blow  may  be, 
it  is  undoubtedly  a  wise  Providence  that  has  ordered 
it." 

Happy  Hippy  was  suddenly  convulsed  with  laugh- 
ter. "The  funniest  thing  I  have  ever  seen,"  she  said, 
tinkling,  "is  Mr.  Childers'  face.  It  is  like  the  quint- 
essence of  half  a  dozen  well-selected  funerals.  I  just 
mentioned  her  name  to  him,  and  he  flew  into  such  a 
rage  that  I  beat  a  retreat.  And  that  silly  little  Poplets 
girl — she  makes  me  sick — fired  up  and  looked  as 
though  she  were  going  to  have  a  fit.  No  doubt  he 
feels  it  acutely.  He  used  to  ride  uptown  with  her  at 
night.  Ha!  ha!  They've  been  seen  a  dozen  times 
crossing  City  Hall  Park.  And  now — how  foolish  he 
must  feel — and  just  engaged,  too!" 

Anastasia  Atwood,  dark  in  her  mourning  robes, 
drew  a  deep  breath.  She  remembered  a  certain  dinner 
at  Mouquin's,  when  Miss  Sydenham,  seated  with  the 
managing  editor,  had  dared  to  invite  her  to  join  them 
at  their  table.  Perhaps  Sallie  had  never  imagined  how 
thoroughly  the  most  insignificant  favor  might  be 
turned  to  her  disadvantage.  But  Anastasia  had  a  good 
memory. 

"Not  for  the  world,"  she  remarked,  "would  I  utter  a 
word  derogatory  to  Mr.  Childers.  Men  are  merely 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  329 

thoughtless.  They  lack  psychic  intuition.  What  Mrs. 
Hapgood  says  is  true,  however.  They  have  been  seen 
together,  and  I  have  seen  them — positively  dining. 
And,"  sinking  her  voice  to  a  whisper,  "unless  I  am 
very  much  mistaken,  there  was  wine  on  the  table.  Oh" 
— arranging  her  hands  spectacularly — "why — why  is 
it  that  we  are  tried  so  sorely — that  we  have  no  pre- 
monitions— no  foreshadowings  ?  I  could  weep  as  I 
think  of  Mr.  Childers,  now  engaged  to  a  beautiful, 
pure  and  unsophisticated  maiden,  hampered  by  such 
recollections.  For  never — never — no  matter  what  hap- 
pens— can  he  forget  that  he  dined  and  talked  in  con- 
spicuous tete-a-tete  with  this  woman  to  whom  chastity 
is  nothing.  In  the  years  to  come,  when  little  children 
are  gathered  round  his  knee,  his  vision  of  this  dreadful 
thing  will  confront  him.  He  will  see  her,  branded  in 
scarlet — a  blot  upon  the  sanctity  of  his  home — before 
his  mental  eyes." 

Mamie  Munson  tittered.  She  thought  it  rather  rude 
of  Anastasia  to  even  imagine  Mr.  Childers  with  chil- 
dren, when  he  was  merely  engaged.  But  she  deemed 
it  wise  to  say  nothing,  as  each  of  the  owls,  in  pictur- 
esque hysteria,  might  pounce  upon  and  unmask  her. 
For  they  knew  her  heart,  as  they  knew  their  own. 
Each  was  fully  aware  that  the  other  was  playing  a  part 
in  a  comedy  with  a  "strong"  situation. 

Lamp-Post  Lucy  was  stamping  majestically  about 
the  room,  her  Wellingtons  sounding  like  the  muffled 
tread  of  troops.  She  could  have  laughed  aloud  at  An- 
astasia Atwood,  and  at  another  time,  perhaps,  would 
gladly  have  done  so.  But  she  was  afraid  of  her  sisters, 
as  they  were  afraid  of  her.  The  one  thing  they  all 
dreaded  was  to  be  accused  of  sour  grapes.  They  had 
all  been  singularly  free  from  temptation — for  obvious 
and  other  reasons — and  they  were  lugubriously  anxi- 


330  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

cms  to  conceal  from  one  another  a  fact  that  each  knew. 
They  were  playing  like  cats  with  a  mouse  .  .  .  the 
mouse  being  the  situation. 

"I  shall  pray  for  that  poor,  deluded  little  Robinson 
boy,"  said  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson  pres- 
ently. "On  my  knees  I  shall  ask  Divine  interference 
for  him."  (Amelia  couldn't  possibly  have  seen  her 
knees  for  years,  but  she  liked  to  talk  of  them.)  "Silly 
boy !  It  is  truly  wonderful  what  the  influence  of  one 
bad  woman  can  do!  Here  is  this  youth — for  he  is 
really  a  youth — who  might  be"  (she  was  going  to  say 
"my  son,"  but  was  rather  tired  of  insulting  herself,  so 
changed  it  to)  "Anastasia's  son.  Yes,  Anastasia,  you 
can't  deny  it.  He  can't  be  a  day  over  two-and-twenty. 
There  is  this  youth,  assaulting  his  city  editor,  and  actu- 
ally resigning  his  position,  for  the  sake  of  this  aban- 
doned girl.  It  is  deplorable.  I  shall  certainly  pray  for 
him.  It  is  the  least  I  can  do.  Grace  is  what  he 
needs." 

"As  for  his  being  my  son,"  sullenly  remarked  the 
poetess,  "I  must  say  that  I  don't  thank  you  for  the 
supposition,  Amelia.  Really,  I  fail  to  see  its  signifi- 
cance. Little  Robinson  is,  as  you  say,  at  least  two- 
and-twenty.  I  have  been  married  ten  years.  You 
seem  to  intimate  that  for  twelve  years  I  was  on  a  level 
with  Miss  Sydenham,  and  that — Harry  was  a  fool. 
These  personalities  are  very  distressing,  and  I  will  not 
allow  them.  Nobody  has  the  right  to  make  such  in- 
sinuations. I  simply — " 

"Break  away,"  cried  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  elegantly. 
"Break  away.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  pros  and  cons 
of  this  case  are  limitless,  and  we  are  running  round 
and  round  without  arriving  anywhere.  I  vote  that  we 
pray  for  everybody  concerned — Mr.  Childers,  Mr. 
Stuyvesant,  little  Robinson,  and  Miss  Sydenham,  her- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  331 

self.  We  shall  be  so  busy  that  we  sha'n't  have  time  for 
ourselves.  But  we  don't  need  it.  We — " 

"Stay!"  Again  the  corrugated  hand  of  Mrs.  Ame- 
lia Amberg  Hutchinson  was  brought  into  violent  con- 
tact with  her  desk.  "Lucy  is  flippant,  and  the  occa- 
sion calls  for  no  frivolity.  I  had  no  intention  of  af- 
fronting you,  Anastasia.  I  should  have  known" — 
spitefully — "that  you  were  childless.  A  marriage  late 
in  life  is  convenient,  but  not  usually  prolific,  as  I  fre- 
quently tell  my  correspondents  when  they  enclose 
stamps  for  reply.  Accept  my  apology,  Anastasia.  I 
should  have  known  better.  Little  Robinson  might 
have  been  my  own  son,  and  I  am  not  ashamed  to  admit 
it.  I  hope  the  confession  satisfies  you.  In  the  mean- 
time, let  us  be  peaceful.  Do  not  let  it  be  said  that  we 
have  waxed  fractious  over  so  drear  an  episode  as  this. 
Rather  let  the  world  see  us  tranquilly  resigned — hope- 
ful for  the  future — brave,  cheerful." 

"If  you  had  mixed  in  society  as  I  have  done,"  said 
Miss  Eisenstein,  who  had  been  silent,  sucking  in  sweet 
draughts  of  the  turbulent  mixture  that  she  had  brewed, 
"you  would  not  let  yourselves  go  on  in  this  plebeian 
way.  It  is  assuredly  a  very  nasty  affair,  but  in  the  very 
highest  society,  people  look  upon  it  all  as  a  sort  of  joke. 
It  would  be  infra  dig.  to  moralize,  and  philosophize, 
and  fall  upon  one's  knees  as  Amelia  contemplates  do- 
ing. One  discusses  the  situation — one  deplores  it — 
and  ta-ta.  It  is  finished.  Next." 

The  society  writer  in  the  Division  Street  hat  laughed 
gracefully  and  shrugged  her  shoulders.  She  would 
have  been  bitterly  disappointed  if  her  tale-bearing  had 
resulted  in  nothing  more  than  the  effect  she  outlined. 
She  had  fully,  contemplated  the  splendid  enormity  of 
the  event  .that  she  narrated.  She  had  greedily  inhaled 
the  atmospheric  disturbance  that  she  had  aroused. 


332  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Still,  she  felt  bound  to  play  her  part,  and  she  flattered 
herself  that  she  was  never  lacking. 

Later  in  the  day  Mr.  Atkinson  Smith  "dropped  in" 
in  his  accustomed  manner.  Perhaps  he  thought  that  a 
breezy  discussion  of  the  Sydenham  case  with  the  femi- 
nine owls  might  prove  titillant.  But  he  was  disap- 
pointed. The  sanctum  had  re-established  itself.  The 
nest  had  been  carefully  tidied  and  settled.  The 
rumpled  plumage  of  the  owls  had  been  ostentatiously 
smoothed.  His  overtures  were  disregarded.  He  was 
quite  prepared  to  listen  to  outbreaks  of  outraged  virtue, 
which  are  soothing  to  certain  men. 

He  found  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,  chastely  ar- 
rayed in  her  happy-wife-and-mother  look,  answering 
correspondents  sweetly  and  anxiously — removing  gal- 
axies of  freckles,  veritable  torrents  of  pimples,  armies 
of  blackheads  from  confiding,  communicative  faces. 
Mum  was  Amelia  as  far  as  Miss  Sydenham  was  con- 
cerned. To  his  deftly  managed  probing  she  replied 
with  a  smile  and  an  expression  of  charity.  Atkinson 
Smith  was  chagrined. 

Anastasia  Atwood,  in  the  throes  of  composition,  was 
equally  taciturn.  She  coaxed  a  stagnant  tear  to  lurk 
in  an  eye,  as  she  looked  up  at  him,  but  he  could  not  in- 
duce her  to  talk,  and  he  clamored  to  hear  her.  In 
vain  did  he  emit  "maxims"  which,  at  another  time, 
would  have  provoked  retort — even  if  she  failed  to  un- 
derstand them.  Anastasia  wrapped  herself  in  a  cloak 
of  silence  and  declined  to  emerge  therefrom. 

In  despair  he  turned  to  Happy  Hippy,  who  had 
never  been  known  to  fail  in  any  emergency.  But  she 
was  primed  for  him.  Had  they  been  alone,  the  flood- 
gates of  her  eloquence  might  have  been  opened.  He 
would  have  received  at  least  two  Rolands  for  his 
Oliver.  But  in  the  presence  of  the  feminine  owls 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  333 

Happy  Hippy  thought  it  politic  to  be  a  perfect  lady. 
Atkinson  Smith  fancied,  just  once,  that  he  saw  her 
wink,  as  he  alluded  to  the  scene  that  met  the  eye  of 
Detective  Sylvester  Jackson ;  but  he  was  not  sure  of  it. 
At  any  rate,  she  declined  to  be  drawn  out,  and  Atkin- 
son Smith  reserved  her  for  future  reference. 

Miss  Munson  coquettishly  cast  down  her  eyes,  and 
kept  them  down.  In  vain  did  he  speak  of  girls  with 
mothers,  knowing  her  specialty — and  nobody  could 
avoid  knowing  it.  Miss  Munson  for  once  kept  mom- 
mer  carefully  tucked  away  in  the  recesses  of  her  heart. 
She  even  managed  to  blush  once  or  twice,  a  feat  that 
she  was  rarely  able  to  accomplish,  but  which  she  at- 
tained by  thinking  persistently  of  the  asterisks  of  the 
situation.  She  felt  very  pleased  with  herself.  She 
was  the  only  feminine  owl  that  had  blushed,  and  she 
hoped  that  the  fact  had  impressed  itself  upon  Atkinson 
Smith's  receptive  mind. 

Lamp-Post  Lucy,  who  had  never  yet  appealed  to 
him,  was  unsuccessfully  approached.  She  sat,  with 
her  legs  crossed,  swinging  a  Wellington  and  smiling 
agreeably.  But  she  was  mute  on  the  subject  of  Sallie 
Sydenham.  She  felt  bound  to  follow  the  leader.  In 
union  there  was  strength — and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
Whatever  she  might  think  of  this  unusual  policy  of 
silence,  she  felt  that  it  was  her  duty  to  live  up  to  it. 
Moreover,  nothing  could  have  blackened  poor  Sallie 
more  completely  than  this  heavy  lethargy.  It  was  hard 
for  Lamp-Post  Lucy  to  resist  a  few  pregnant  aphor- 
isms, but  she  succeeded.  Atkinson  Smith  made  no 
effort  to  talk  to  Eva  Higgins,  who  was  too  serious  to 
be  amusing. 

He  left  the  feminine  owls,  completely  abashed.  This 
feeling  gave  way  to  one  of  resentment. 

"Silly  old  cats !"  he  thought  to  himself.     "What  are 


334  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

they  for,  if  not  to  entertain  us?"  And  he  resolved  to 
give  them  a  wide  berth  for  the  future  ...  in  fact,  to 
punish  them.  He  had  accustomed  himself  to  a  daily 
visit,  from  which  he  derived  much  amusement.  They 
were  as  good  as  a  farce,  and  they  gave  him  steady,  un- 
flagging satisfaction.  He  enjoyed  the  comedy  that 
exuded  from  their  pores,  and  he  was  not  prepared  for 
this  sudden  access  of  repressive  prudery,  which  he 
knew  full  well  was  in  reality  displayed  for  his  benefit. 

And  so  bad  news  rode  post  and  news  baited,  and 
feminine  Owldom  knew  the  keenest  joy.  The  sin- 
ister silence  of  Mr.  Childers  was  easxperating,  and 
the  sudden  development  of  little  Poplets  from  a  meek 
nonentity  to  a  full-fledged  virago  astounded  them. 
But  everything  was  arranged  to  suit  their  own  concep- 
tion of  the  case.  Mr.  Childers'  attitude  was  due  to 
self-reproach,  remorse,  the  qualms  of  conscience,  the 
knowledge  that  he  had  been  gulled  and  deceived.  Lit- 
tle Poplets  was  taking  advantage  of  this  state  to  dis- 
play herself  in  her  true  colors. 

And  gradually  the  veil  of  silence  fell  upon  the  of- 
fice, and  its  tireless  routine  was  re-established.  It 
was  surprisingly  dull  without  Sallie.  A  fruitful  topic 
of  conversation  had  been  removed.  Half  the  occupa- 
tion of  feminine  Owldom  was  gone.  No  longer  could 
they  discuss  the  ribaldry  of  her  writing,  or  the  aban- 
doned, perverted  views  of  life  that  she  took.  No  more 
were  they  able  to  gossip  of  her  appearance,  her  make- 
up, her  demeanor,  her  unwomanliness,  her  flightiness. 
The  days  seemed  lank  and  long.  Amelia  Amberg 
Hutchinson  dared  to  find  her  correspondents  inoppor- 
tune and  provoking ;  Anastasia  Atwood  lost  a  favorite 
pose,  and  was  overpowered  with  the  stern  prose  of  her 
poetry;  Happy  Hippy,  whose  allurements  had  been 
frequently  brought  to  a  head  by  the  fillip  given  to  her 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  335 

persiflage  by  Sallie  Sydenham,  grew  dull  and  despond- 
ent; Eva  Higgins  found  the  moods  of  her  sisters  try- 
ing and  fatal  to  her  inspiration ;  Lamp-Post  Lucy  real- 
ized the  disastrous  somnolence  of  the  office,  and  could 
have  found  it  in  her  heart  to  wish  that  somebody  else 
would  go  wrong;  Mamie  Munsoh  alluded  less  fre- 
quently to  her  parent,  for  now  the  office  was  so  atro- 
ciously virtuous  that  even  a  mother's  influence  was  un- 
necessary; even  Rita  Eisenstein  felt  the  appalling 
change. 

The  machinery  of  a  fatiguing,  daily  routine  had  lost 
its  pleasant  lubrication — the  one  spot  that  rendered 
friction  impossible.  The  withdrawal  of  Sallie  Syden- 
ham was  a  bitter  blow  to  the  feminine  owls — bitter  and 
unacknowledged.  The  most  irritating  thing  about  it 
was  that  the  interest  in  it  sagged  so  gloomily.  Prowl 
around  the  subject  as  they  would,  and  as  they  did,  its 
vitality  was  gradually  impaired.  The  finest  sensation 
in  the  world  has  death  written  largely  upon  its  very 
face.  The  skill  of  malevolence  and  the  attitude  of  un- 
charity  cannot  keep  it  alive.  It  is  doomed  from  the 
start.  All  the  efforts  of  Mrs.  Amelia  Amberg  Hutch- 
inson — and  like  Mrs.  Dombey,  she  made  'em — all  the 
coy  suggestiveness  of  Anastasia  Atwood  and  the  jour- 
nalistic sisterhood  were  of  no  avail.  They  could  not 
keep  the  sap  in  the  miserable  story  of  poor  Sallie's 
downfall.  It  was  soon  an  oft  and  very  oft-told  tale. 
Even  the  boys  who  "ran"  the  elevator,  the  woman  who 
scrubbed  the  floors,  the  youths  who  carried  the  copy, 
grew  weary  of  it.  New  rumors,  novel  twists,  other 
view-points  were  introduced  like  the  last  sad  resorts  of 
consulting  physicians.  All  failed. 

In  the  happy  little  sanctum  there  was  peace  and 
slumbrous  calm  that  knew  no  breezy,  tonicy  awaken- 
ing. And  the  feminine  owls  loathed  it  all.  They 


336  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

bickered,  and  they  struggled  with  this  demoralizing 
quiet  that  threatened  to  be  endless.  Anchored  solidly 
in  the  helplessness  of  their  own  virtue,  they  saw  be- 
fore them  the  sad  vista  of  the  unruffled  and  the  un- 
eventful. Not  one  of  them  would  be  "lured  to  her 
ruin."  They  were  all  horribly  certain  of  it.  Gibraltar 
was  no  less  stable  than  Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson, 
Anastasia  Atwood,  Lamp-Post  Lucy,  Happy  Hippy, 
Eva  Higgins,  Mamie  Munson  and  Rita  Eisenstein. 

Sallie  Sydenham  was  fully  avenged.     They  missed 
her  footstep  on  the  stair  .  .  .  bless  you ! 


D 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

O  every  owl  at  some  sad,  unexpected  moment 
comes  the  drear  sensation  of  finality.  Wheels 
that  have  revolved  in  quick,  incessant  cir- 
cuits stop  suddenly,  and  the  blithe,  insouciant 
owl  is  confronted  with  dire  possibilities.  Lulled  by  a 
fiendish  sense  of  security — for  money  flows  in  regu- 
larly, and  woes  that  beset  the  votaries  of  commerce  are 
almost  unknown — the  habitants  of  Newspaper  Row 
go  blindly  to  their  fate.  One  nest  fails  them  .  .  . 
there  are  others.  It  is  only  when  the  crisis  looms  up, 
immense,  morose,  and  portentous,  that  the  irony  of  the 
thing  appeals. 

Gay  improvidence  has  achieved  its  work.  The  owl 
has  not  foreseen  the  "rainy  day."  There  are  few  econ- 
omies, and  rare  provisions.  A  single  day's  skirmish 
missed  is  a  serious  affair;  an  idle  week  is  a  calamity; 
leisure,  further  enforced,  and  a  stark  procession  of  ills 
and  wants  passes  promiscuously.  Those  who  have  had 
no  time  to  make  money,  but  merely  long  and  wasteful 
years  in  which  to  earn  it,  realize  the  vanity  and  cruelty 
of  it  all. 

"The  destiny,"  as  Henry  Watterson  has  said,  "that 
began  in  the  love  of  letters  and  adventure  is  to  end 
only  in  victory  or  the  poorhouse."  And  he  gilds  the 
haunts  of  Newspaper  Row  with  all  the  glamour  of  an 
old-time  Bohemia.  He  apostrophizes  poetically  "the 
working  boys  on  the  force,  the  silent  singers  of  the 
press,  who  begin  at  fifteen,  to  be  no  longer  efficient  at 
fifty,  unless  along  the  route  they  have  secured  some 
safe  retreat,  or  quiet  corner,  where  they  may  work  out 


338  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

their  dependency  until  the  final  summons  that  equalizes 
us  all  comes  to  take  them  hence." 

And  these  "silent  singers"  struggle  along,  perfectly 
satisfied,  achieving  their  weekly  pittance,  and  .  .  . 
preparing  to  achieve  another.  The  contemplation  of 
logical  possibilities  is  not  at  all  in  their  line.  Quand  il 
n'y  en  a  plus,  il  y  en  a  toufours.  It  is  the  motto  of 
Newspaperdom.  Blinking  in  owl-like  sagacity,  they 
see  the  necessary  finish  of  all  ...  but  themselves! 
Pungent  stories  of  fates  to  which  their  own  are  kin 
flow  from  their  pens.  Their  eyes  are  turned  outward 
.  .  .  never  inward.  And  the  time  comes  stealthily, 
inevitably,  when  journalism,  with  its  mighty  pumps, 
has  drawn  from  them  all  their  vital  juices;  when  noth- 
ing but  a  dry  and  pulpless  rind  remains — brains  weary, 
bodies  fatigued,  a  long  apprenticeship  unavailing,  an 
unworldly  worldiness  unable  to  cope  with  material  cer- 
tainties— and  the  gaunt  hand  of  lank  impecuniosity 
is  stretched  menacingly  out.  Younger  blood,  meth- 
ods "up-to-date,"  new-time  procedures,  cry  out  at  them 
with  mocking  insistence.  The  "powers  that  be"  have 
changed,  and  wot  nothing  of  long  and  faithful  service. 
And  they  slink  away  from  all  that  has  known  them,  to 
go  ...  the  Lord  knows  where.  Men  of  lost  oppor- 
tunities !  Sad  perversions  of  nerve  and  grit ! 

Sallie  Sydenham  sat  with  Lettie  one  morning  in  her 
little  dining-room  and  suddenly — for  the  first  time — it 
occurred  to  her  that  her  exchequer  was  void.  Her 
martyrdom  was  undoubtedly  very  worthy — and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  She  had  done  heroic  deeds  in  the  name 
of  love  and  loyalty — two  admirable  emotions  that  are 
not  at  all  nourishing,  and  have  never  yet  been  known  to 
pay  the  grocer.  And  now  the  question  arose — it  is  a 
question  filled  with  eternal  yeast  and  always  rises — as 
to  what  to  do.  She  must  live,  and  so  must  Lettie — 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  339 

there  was  even  Rosina  to  be  considered — and  the  fu- 
ture, whatever  it  might  have  in  store,  must  be  faced. 
A  contented  mind  may,  in  theory,  be  most  appetizing; 
but  a  loaf  of  bread,  even  with  mental  agitation,  is,  as 
a  rule,  more  practical. 

The  idea  of  flitting  to  another  nest  was  of  course 
intolerable.  Each  owl  is  branded,  and  Sallie  knew  that 
her  story  was  labelled  all  over  the  "fourth  estate." 
Possibly  the  brilliancy  of  her  work  and  the  fame  that  it 
had  brought  to  her  would  count  for  a  great  deal.  But 
the  notion  was  distasteful  to  her.  It  seemed  to  her 
like  the  disloyalty  of  loyalty.  In  fact,  such  a  course 
would  be  repugnant  to  her.  Her  expenses  had  been 
large.  Lettie  had  been  a  drain  upon  her.  She  had 
lived  perhaps  a  trifle  too  regardlessly.  Rosina  had 
been  a  luxury  that  she  might  have  dispensed  with.  She 
had  frittered  away  her  money,  reckless  of  everything, 
and  now,  well  ...  it  was  a  problem.  Owls  cannot 
cope  with  problems — except  in  theory.  They  can  write 
about  them  very  plausibly,  and  reduce  them  to  the  irre- 
sistible form  of  diagram.  They  cannot  apply  them  to 
their  own  uses. 

Little  Robinson,  now  a  constant  visitor  at  Sallie's 
apartment — and  Sallie  saw  with  keenest  joy  certain  lit- 
tle surreptitious  signs  denoting  a  comradeship  between 
Lettie  and  the  impulsive  ex-reporter — had  obtained 
lucrative  employment  in  a  law  office.  He  was  full  of 
schemes  for  Sallie,  and  could  talk  by  the  hour  of 
plans  that  would  raise  her  to  millionairedom.  But  it 
was  the  "meantime"  that  worried.  Sallie  felt  that 
rents  and  things  would  have  to  be  paid  before  she  was 
a  millionairess.  There  were  grocers,  and  butchers,  and 
prosaic  things  like  light,  that  must  be  airily  toyed  with. 
Of  course,  these  trifles  would  be  ludicrous  when  she 
stood  on  a  Vanderbiltian  pinnacle.  But  in  the  mean- 


340  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

time.  ...  It  is  the  "meantime"  that  is  the  curse  of 
life.  The  future  is  generally  beautiful,  especially  to 
owls.  It  usually  takes  on  a  luminous  aspect.  If  only 
the  "meantime"  could  be  successfully  bridged  .  .  . 

He  was  a  nice,  honest  little  boy — that  foolish  Rob- 
inson— and  she  grew  to  like  him  more  than  ever.  His 
high  spirits  were  infectious,  and  they  cheered  her.  In 
his  eyes  she  was  perfection.  With  all  the  fervor  of  his 
youth  he  was  devoted  to  her.  And  Lettie— her  faint 
reflection — a  dear  link  by  which,  perhaps,  he  might 
later  achieve  a  cherished  proximity,  charmed  him. 
They  might  have  been  so  cosy — that  young  three — 
Sallie  with  the  past  to  feed  on,  the  others  recklessly 
stretching  forth  to  an  outlined  future !  But  the  "mean- 
time" cropped  up.  It  was  the  mote  in  the  sunbeam; 
it  usually  is.  What  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it? 

Fortunately,  the  difficulty  was  solved  in  due  course 
by  the  appearance  of  Charlie  Covington.  Sallie  had 
forgotten  him — or  she  thought  that  she  had — for  she 
felt  that  she  had  repaid  his  devotion  with  ingratitude, 
and  she  had  vigorously  tried  to  forget  that  night !  He 
was  an  "old  friend,"  as  she  had  told  him,  and  old 
friends  cannot  accommodate  themselves  to  new  condi- 
tions. They  judge  by  their  previous  knowledge. 
Strangers,  as  Doudan  says,  take  us  for  reasonable  be- 
ings. Sallie  fought  down  an  impulse  to  evoke  the  aid 
of  Charlie  Covington.  And  so  she  forgot  him — or 
thought  that  she  did  so. 

He  had  aged,  and  he  was  more  serious  than  usual. 
Time  was  dealing  very  rudely  with  him,  and  she  looked 
at  him  remorsefully  as  he  came,  for  the  first  time,  to 
her  little  home.  She  was  sorely  oppressed,  and  a  pre- 
sentiment that  the  horrible  affair  was  to  be  dug  up  and 
discussed  all  over  again  made  her  tremble.  Until 
events  took  place — those  that  Arthur  Stuyvesant  had 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  341 

vaguely  indicated — she  had  resolved  to  give  no  abid- 
ing place  in  her  mind  to  any  single  aspect  of  her  drama. 
When  she  saw  Charlie  Covington  before  her  the  horrid 
panorama  began  to  move  vividly.  But  the  young  man 
knew  her  too  well;  his  fine,  sensitive  nature  was  too 
keenly  attuned  to  sanction  the  brusquerie  of  the  mere 
intruder. 

"I  have  been  thinking,"  he  said  as  they  sat  at  the  lit- 
tle dining-room  table,  "that  you  will  want  something 
to  do,  Sallie.  And  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  I  can 
provide  it.  Could  you  write  stories — wild,  woolly  love 
affairs,  full  of  the  conventional  sentiment  that  shop- 
girls and  factory  hands  adore?  You  know  the  kind 
of  thing  I  mean — stories  that  always  end  happily,  with 
lots  of  marriage  bells — stories  in  which  the  heroine 
is  perpetually  beautiful,  and  the  hero  invariably  a  six- 
footer,  with  lithe,  clean-cut  limbs,  blue  eyes,  and  curly 
hair?  And,  of  course,  a  villain.  Do  you  think  you 
could  do  this?" 

For  a  moment  she  could  not  speak,  for  she  was  un- 
able to  lure  herself  to  a  consideration  of  his  practical 
suggestion.  She  was  contemplating  the  events  that 
had  passed  and  marvelling  at  his  unselfishness.  For  she 
knew  that  there  was  much  he  should  hear — that  he 
had  a  right  to  hear — and  yet  he  did  not  ask.  This  was 
surely  friendship  in  the  very  essence  of  its  altruism. 
What  had  she  done  to  deserve  such  a  wealth  of  disin- 
terested devotion?  Her  eyes  grew  dim,  and  .  .  .  she 
averted  her  face.  She  could  not  look  at  him.  He  was 
so  pale ;  he  seemed  so  ill,  and  yet  he  could  think  of  her 
welfare,  and  only  of  that.  All  that  had  passed  .  .  . 
had  passed.  She  appreciated  Charlie  Covington  at 
last. 

"I  think,"  he  continued,  noting  her  strange  silence, 
"that  if  you 'tried  you  could  write  these  stories.  It 


342  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

would  be  such  a  very  good  thing,  and  I  could  get  you 
steady  and  uninterrupted  employment.  It  is  fatiguing, 
but  it  pays  well,  and  once  you  have  got  into  the  groove 
— well,  Sallie,  there  are  many  worse  things  than  put- 
ting slushy  stories  together.  Of  course — of  course, 
there  will  be  no  glory  in  it." 

Her  eyes  shone.  She  could  not  quite  succeed  in 
thinking  of  herself;  her  admiration  for  this  most  dis- 
interested friendship  was  the  chief  sensation  she  knew. 
But  he  was  waiting  and  she  must  speak. 

"I  do  not  want  glory,"  she  said,  rather  unsteadily. 
"I — I  should  like  to  make  a  living.  What  you  offer, 
Charlie,  is  noble.  It  is  the  very  thing  that  I  should 
have  chosen.  After  a  little  practice,  I  have  no  doubt 
but  that  I  shall  be  able  to  develop  into  a  family  story- 
writer.  At  any  rate,  I  am  deeply  grateful  to  you  for 
the  opportunity.  I  was  just  beginning  to  wonder  what 
I  should  do.  Lettie  is  here  with  me — I  must  intro- 
duce you,  Charlie — and  I  am  anxious  to  keep  up  this 
little  place ;  naturally,  I  should  so  hate  to  give  it  up." 

They  were  silent.  Her  eyes  were  riveted  upon  his 
white  face,  with  its  care-streaks.  He  was  a  young 
old  man;  years  of  lonely  bachelorhood  stared  at  him 
rudely.  Fate  should  have  dealt  differently  with  him, 
she  reflected.  This  warm,  kindly,  scrupulous  nature, 
so  responsive  to  all  the  higher,  nobler  instincts,  should 
have  been  delicately  cherished.  Poor  Charlie!  He 
lived  in  his  dinner  coat  .  .  .  at  his  club.  And  this 
was  anomalous.  He  was  designed  for  a  home  and  the 
comfortable  pleasures  of  domesticity.  It  grieved  her 
to  think  of  all  this.  And  he  had  asked  her  to  be  his 
wife !  It  was  surely  a  great  honor,  in  spite  of  its  ar- 
dent impossibility. 

The  silence  grew  oppressive,  and  she  made  up  her 
mind  there  and  then  to  speak  on  the  one  topic  that  she 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  343 

dreaded.  She  owed  Charlie  Covington  just  that  much. 
His  friendship  was  unfailing— and  even  if  he  had 
spoiled  it  all  by  shearing  away  the  platonics,  her  deep 
sense  of  obligation  to  him  cried  out  for  satisfaction. 

"Were  you  surprised?"  she  asked  quietly,  and  she 
felt  that  there  was  no  need  to  say  more.  The  divining 
rod  of  his  devotion  to  her  would  guess  her  meaning. 

"No,"  he  replied,  and  he  lapsed  into  silence.  But  he 
felt  interrogation  points  in  the  air ;  he  realized  that  she 
was  willing  to  talk ;  he  knew  that  she  even  desired  the 
ventilation  of  the  sickly  subject,  and  he  succumbed. 

"Since  you  wish  it,"  he  continued,  responding  to  her 
swift  telepathy— the  mental  attitude  that  he  felt,  al- 
though no  physical  expression  of  it  had  taken  place 

"since  you  wish  it,  I  will  tell  you,  Sallie,  that  I  guessed 
all.  After  I  left  you  that  evening  when — when  I  was 
foolish  enough  to  suppose  that  you  could  care  for  me 
sufficiently  to  become  my  wife — the  thing  was  sud- 
denly revealed  to  me.  Don't  you  believe  in  intuition  ? 
I  do.  In  my  case  the  truth  was  flashed  upon  me.  They 
call  it  putting  two  and  two  together— as  though 
it  were  all  a  vulgar  question  of  arithmetic.  I  don't 
think  I  added  or  subtracted  anything.  I  simply  real- 
ized for  the  first  time — you  don't  mind  my  saying  it — 
that  you  loved  Jack  Childers." 

She  did  not  flinch.  After  all  ...  what  did  it  mat- 
ter? She  nodded  in  proud  assent,  for  she  could  not 
bring  herself  to  the  banal  expression  of  conventional 
femininity.  She  should  have  said  "Oh,  don't!"  or 
something  equally  deprecatory  ...  but  she  didn't. 

"I  had  not  contemplated  that  possibility  before,"  he 
resumed,  "and  I  was  a  fool.  Jack  is  such  a  lovable 
fellow  .  .  .  any  woman  would  be  justified  in  adoring 
him.  I  saw  it  all  ...  the  frequent  communication 
.  .  .  your  rides  uptown  ...  his  eager  championship 


344  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

of  everything  you  did  .  .  .  your  silent  devotion  to  his 
whims  and  his  opinions — " 

"But,"  she  cried  suddenly,  "you  are  intimating  that 
he  loves  me.  That  .  .  .  that  is  absurd." 

He  held  up  his  hand  in  warning,  but  he  smiled  at 
her  impulsiveness.  "I  think  I  know  you  both,"  he 
said.  "I — I — love  you  both.  Your  heart,  dear  old 
girl,  has  been  revealed  to  me.  May  I  not  also  under- 
stand his?  He  does  not  know  ...  he  has  no  idea  of 
his  sentiments  toward  you.  You  were — a  jolly  good 
fellow,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  eh,  Sallie?  Dear 
old  Jack!" 

And  then  she  did  say  "Oh,  don't !"  But  it  was  not 
a  banal  expression  of  conventional  femininity;  it  was 
wrung  from  her  in  the  exquisite  torture  that  he  in- 
flicted. As  she  listened  to  him  her  breath  came  quick- 
ly. His  apparent  clairvoyance  amazed  her. 

"When  I  heard  this  hateful  story,"  he  went  on,  "and 
saw  the  horror  of  the  position  in  which  you  had  placed 
yourself,  everything  was  made  clear.  First  of  all,  I 
remembered  the  night  of  the  reception  .  .  .  when  Ivy 
Hampton  was  seen  in  communion  with  Arthur  Stuyve- 
sant.  At  the  time  I  thought  this  extremely  odd,  but 
I  forgot  it.  For  it  might  have  been  just  a  trivial  inci- 
dent. It  was  susceptible  to  plausible  explanation. 
And  next  .  .  .  there  was  that  unprecedented  demand 
of  yours  for  a  cruel  assignment.  This  was  all  neatly 
dovetailed  in  my  mind — though  I  cannot  call  it  putting 
two  and  two  together — and  I  understood.  You  had 
been  there  to  warn  them,  and  had  been  caught  in  the 
act.  I  am  right?" 

He  had  spoken  very  slowly,  and  his  deliberate  words 
rang  out  clearly  and  astoundingly.  To  Sallie  it  was 
marvellous.  It  was  as  though  he  had  read  her  mind. 
She  looked  at  him  in  awe,  as  though  he  had  been  in 
communication  with  discarnate  intelligence. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  345 

"You  are  right,"  she  said;  "and  it  was  poor  little 
Mrs.  Stuyvesant  who  gave  me  the  opportunity  to  warn 
them.  I  had  told  her  all,  Charlie,"  she  added,  anxious 
to  "confess"  what  seemed  to  her  at  that  moment  to  be 
an  act  of  disloyalty.  For  she  had  confessed  to  a  stran- 
ger what  this  disinterested  friend  had  been  obliged 
to  guess. 

"But  if  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  knew  everything?"  he 
asked,  suddenly  puzzled,  "if  you  had  told  her  the 
truth,  then — even  if  Detective  Jackson  had  declared  to 
her  that  he  had  discovered  you  in  Stuyvesant's  room — 
she  would  have  understood  ?  Why  did  you  go  to  such 
very  extremes  of  martyrdom?  Was  it  not  needless?" 

"I  could  do  nothing  else,"  she  answered,  submitting 
to  his  catechism.  "The  divorce  case  was  really  dis- 
carded. It  had  not  occurred  to  me  to  imagine  that 
Mr.  Green  would  think  .  .  .  what  he  thought.  He 
regarded  me  as  guilty  .  .  .  the  affair  was  noised 
through  the  office.  I  was  in  a  disastrous  position.  If 
I  had  told  Mr.  Childers  the  truth,  he  would  have  had  to 
explain  it  all  to  Mr.  Green  and  the  office.  I  know 
he  would  have  done  it,  and  would  have  branded  his 
own  flesh  and  blood.  But  that  is  not  what  I  wanted, 
Charlie.  I  had  gone  so  far,  and  I  had  no  intention  of 
receding.  The  truth  will  be  known — Arthur  Stuy- 
vesant has  sworn  it,  and  on  this  occasion  I  believe  him. 
All  that  I  care  for,  therefore,  is  ...  that  I  averted 
scandal,  and  that  Jack  Childers  will  never  marry  Ivy." 

She  unlocked  a  desk  and  took  from  it  the  letter  she 
had  received  from  the  actor.  From  it  she  read  the 
words  that  had  consoled  her  when,  with  her  whole 
soul,  she  had  prayed  for  assistance.  "Of  course,  you 
will  feel  it  your  duty,"  she  read,  "to  break  the  en- 
gagement between  Ivy  and  Mr.  Childers.  That  will 
be  even  harder  for  you  than  the  difficult  task  you  have 


346  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

already  undertaken  and  carried  through.  And  so  I 
write  these  lines  to  you,  Miss  Sydenham,  to  tell  you. 
that  the  engagement  will  be  broken,  and  that  you 
can  leave  the  matter  to  us.  I  swear  to  you  solemnly, 
by  all  that  I  have  ever  held  holy  (and  there  have  been 
a  few  things,  Miss  Sydenham;  there  are  still  one  or 
two)  that  Ivy  and  Mr.  Childers  will  never  be  married. 
Rest  quite  assured  of  that.  You  can  leave  Mr  Child- 
ers in  tranquillity  for  the  present.  You  need  not  be 
the  bearer  of  news  that  you  would  loathe  to  impart. 
Only  be  satisfied,  and  convinced  that  you  have  nothing 
further  to  do.  You  can  also  believe  that  we  are  actu- 
ated solely  by  our  own  interests." 

It  did  her  good  to  re-read  these  lines.  Again  she 
felt  their  promising  import.  They  refreshed  her  and 
revived  her  spirits. 

"I  think  I  understand,"  Charlie  Covington  said.  "In 
fact,  I  feel  quite  sure  that  I  see  the  denouement.  But, 
Sallie,  when  it  occurs  you  will  go  back — to  Newspaper 
Row,  and" — viciously — "confront  those  who  have  ac- 
cused you." 

She  shuddered.  "Never!"  she  cried.  "Never! 
As  long  as  there  is  a  floor  to  scrub  in  New  York,  or — 
or" — with  a  smile — "or  stories  of  thin  heroines  and 
doughty  heroes  to  write,  I  shall  remain  outside  of 
Newspaper  Row.  I  could  not  face  them.  I  could  never 
forget  .  .  .  what  they  thought.  I  shall  miss  it,  I 
know.  After  all,  it  is  inspiring,  isn't  it,  Charlie  ?  We 
think  we  hate  the  excitement,  and  worry,  and  disap- 
pointment— all  the  dear  old  turmoil  and  the  promiscu- 
ous intercourse — of  journalism.  But — we  don't.  I 
< — I — long  for  it  now.  Oh,  for  a  theatre,  and  a  trudge 
through  City  Hall  Park  to  the  office  to  see  the  jolly  old 
boys,  and  to  drink  in  the  noise  and  the  electricity  of  it 
all.  But  .  .  but  it  is  all  over.  I  shall  be  redeemed 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  347 

in  some  way — you  can  guess  the  way;  I  can't.  But 
I  could  not  go  back  to  journalism,  and  I  could  not  bear 
to  see  Jack  Childers  when  he  knows." 

"You  are  right,"  he  said  presently.  He  wondered 
why — oh,  strange  inconsistency! — he  had  contem- 
plated her  return ;  for  had  he  not  longed  to  drag  her 
from  it  all?  Had  he  not  told  himself,  when  he  asked 
her  to  be  his  wife,  that  he  was  partly  actuated  by  the 
desire  to  remove  her  from  the  dreary  surroundings 
of  Newspaper  Row?  "You  are  right,  Sallie,"  he  re- 
peated, "and" — with  an  emotion  that  he  could  not  re- 
press— "you  are  a  heroine." 

But  she  felt  that  she  must  trample  down  any  mush- 
room growth  of  pathos.  She  dreaded  it,  for  it  would 
take  so  little  to  weaken  her  attitude.  In  a  few  min- 
utes, if  she  were  not  careful,  she  would  be  weeping  on 
his  shoulder.  And  he  might  shed  a  tear.  ...  In  real 
life  men  often  shed  tears.  It  is  disgraceful  in  books 
and  plays,  inevitable  in  actual  experience.  .  .  .  She 
could  not  tolerate  the  mere  possibility  of  an  emotional 
duet. 

"Don't  call  me  a  heroine."  she  said  flippantly — poor 
old  wraith  of  her  former  easy  moods!  "It  is  such  a 
nasty  thing  to  say.  I  daresay  you  think  I'm  like  the 
beautiful  girls  in  plays,  who  could  avert  five  acts  of 
misery  by  speaking  one  little  harmless  word.  I  hope 
I'm  not  in  that  class.  I  was  not  driven  out  into  the 
snow-storm  and  the  night  by  any  such  absurdity.  Do 
you  really  think  I  was,  Charlie?  If  I  could  have 
avoided  all  this  I  would  have  done  it.  I  was  awfully 
cowardly,  and  several  times  I  seriously  thought  of 
giving  the  whole  snap  away.  Even  after  I  had  spoken 
to  Mr.  Green,  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  march  out  of 
the  office  like  a  heroine.  I  had  to  see  Mr.  Childers,  if 
you  please.  And  I  will  confess — isn't  it  awfully  un- 


348  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

heroinely,  Charlie? — that  in  my  soul  I  hoped  he 
would  beg  me  to  stay  and  find  some  way  out  of  it. 
And  then — I  should  have  stayed.  Of  course,  I  see  now 
that  it  was  impossible.  I  might  certainly  have  given 
Jack — Mr.  Childers — an  opportunity  to  be  a  hero,  by 
allowing  him  to  tell  the  world  that  I  was  innocent,  and 
that  his  affianced  wife  was  the  culprit.  But  I  was  too 
— er — selfish  to  give  him  that  chance.  I  wanted  all 
that  was  a-coming  to  me,  don't  you  see,  Charlie?" 

"But  as  long  as  it  has  got  to  come  out  later,  why 
should  you  have  piled  on  the  agony?"  he  asked,  vacil- 
lating again. 

"Precisely,"  she  answered,  "because  I  was  not  a 
heroine.  I  couldn't  bear  to  tell  him  myself.  Perhaps 
he  would  have  hated  me  for  it.  You  see" — and  she 
steadied  her  voice  with  an  effort — "I  wanted  to  appear 
in  a  picturesque  light  later.  I  haven't  been  writing 
dramatic  criticism  all  this  time  without  acquiring  an 
eye  for  dramatic  effect.  I  want  a  halo,  even  though  I 
don't  deserve  it.  In  reality,  I  am  quite  feeble  and 
silly.  I  have  tried  to  make  things  as  easy  for  myself 
as  I  could  all  the  way  through  this  wretched  affair. 
Call  me  anything  you  like,  Charlie,  but  not  a  heroine. 
There  is  only  one  thing  in  this  world  worse  than  a  hero- 
ine, and  it  is  a  lady." 

Charlie  Covington  saw  through  the  transparency  of 
her  elaborate  frivolity.  He  knew  that  there  was  no 
flaw  in  the  work  that  she  had  done.  She  could  not 
have  acted  differently  with  any  consistency.  Evert 
though  Detective  Sylvester  Jackson's  mission  had  been 
robbed  of  all  significance  by  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  herself, 
the  position  could  not  have  been  explained  to  the  office 
without  complete  ventilation  of  the  entire  uncanny  skel- 
eton. Its  bones  would  have  creaked ;  its  joints  would 
have  talked ;  its  ossification  would  have  been  utter  reve- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  349 

lation.  He  looked  at  the  girl  whom  he  would  so  gladly 
have  crushed  to  his  heart  .  .  .  and  he  resolved  to 
stand  by  her  and  to  "see  her  through." 

"Jack  Childers  has  gone  to  San  Francisco,"  he  said 
suddenly,  "and  he  will  be  away  for  a  couple  of  months." 

"Then  I  won't  regret  Newspaper  Row,"  she  de- 
clared, with  a  gleam  in  her  eyes ;  "at  least,  not  until  he 
returns.  I  can't  imagine  the  office  without  him." 

"Perhaps,"  Mr.  Covington  remarked,  "he  cannot  im- 
agine the  office  without  you.  I  would  not  tell  him  so 
for  the  world,  because  he  would  not  believe  me.  But" 
— with  a  smile — "it  is  possible.  I'm  a  fool  very  often, 
Sallie,  and  I've  rarely  been  known  to  see  through  brick 
walls.  But — well,  you  know — I'm  so — so  fond  of  you 
both  that  I  feel  as  though  I  were  suddenly  possessed 
of  .new  faculties.  Don't  you  think  that  in  certain  sit- 
uations of  life  unrecognized  powers  are  born  within 
us?" 

"Dear  old  friend,"  she  cried  gratefully,  and  .  .  .  she 
wished  she  could  kiss  him.  She  always  had  an  exas- 
perating desire — a  most  absurd  and  unconventional 
longing — to  kiss  her  cherished  friends.  She  had  ex- 
perienced it  in  the  case  of  little  Robinson.  It  was  very 
horrid,  of  course,  because  kisses  are  looked  upon  by  the 
world  as  incongruous  in  platonic  positions.  But  are 
they?  .  .  .  Perhaps  we  shall  never  know,  because  no- 
body would  dare  to  admit  Sallie  Sydenham's  apparent 
abnormality.  She  held  herself  back  with  an  effort  the 
instant  she  realized  that  her  impulse  intended  to  lead 
her  towards  Charlie  Covington's  ruby  lips.  And  he 
would  be  so  shocked  .  .  .  for  he  was  at  heart  most 
conventional.  Perhaps  it  was  just  as  well — for  Char- 
lie Covington's  sake — that  she  refrained.  She  vaguely 
felt  that  she  was  "not  like  other  girls" — and  also  not  by 
Rosa  Nouchette  Carey.  Still,  she  would  have  liked  to 


350  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

kiss  him  and  call  him  a  "dear."  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  memory  of  the  night  when  he  had  revealed  himself, 
she  would  have  yielded  to  her  desire.  Fortunately 
she  recalled  that  luckless  attitude  of  his  ...  in  time. 
And  yet  she  was  so  acutely  grateful  to  him!  The 
sweet  possibility  at  which  he  hinted  meant  so  much 
to  her,  and  she  was  tempted  to  believe  in  those  new- 
born faculties  to  which  he  had  alluded.  He  would 
not  have  spoken  ...  as  he  had  spoken  .  .  .  unless  he 
were  sincerely  convinced.  And  if  it  were  true!  Yet 
in  her  selfishness  she  could  not  think  of  the  pain  that 
he  must  feel,  or  realize  the  fathomless  depths  of  a  de- 
votion that  allied  her  so  willingly  to  another.  But 
perhaps  Sallie  was  unable  to  seriously  estimate  the 
avowed  affection  of  Charlie  Covington.  He  had  told 
her  that  he  loved  her,  but  she  had  not  attached  a  wide 
importance  to  the  statement.  She  felt  that  she  was 
neither  dangerously  beautiful,  nor  alarmingly  alluring. 

"Once,"  he  said — he  could  not  resist  it — "you  were 
not  inclined  to  call  old  friends  'dear.'  You  thought 
otherwise.  Do  you  remember,  Sallie?" 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  in  quick  self-reproach,  "I  re- 
member; and  I  deserve  to  be  flayed  for  what  I  said, 
Charlie.  You  are  an  old  friend — and  a  dear  old  friend 
— and  I  thank  you  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  and 
I  wish — oh,  how  I  wish ! — I  could  prove  to  you  how 
much  I  appreciate  it  all." 

He  had  not  meant  to  call  forth  this  painful  ebullition 
of  gratitude ;  nor  was  he  conscious  of  the  pathos  of  the 
losing  game  that  he  was  playing  so  carefully.  He  felt 
sorry  that  he  had  reminded  her  of  that  one  fractious 
mood  that,  at  the  time,  had  pained  him  so  deeply.  He 
rose  to  go. 

"I'm  off,  Sallie,"  he  said,  "and  I  shall  tell  Eglinton 
that  you  will  undertake  the  work.  If  you  can  send  in 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  351 

about  ten  thousand  words  a  week  from  to-day,  he  will 
forward  you  a  check  at  once.  In  the  meantime,  I  am 
quite  sure  that  if  you  need  it,  he  will  advance  the 
money." 

"Or  you  will,"  she  murmured.  "It  is  not  necessary, 
Charlie.  I  can  wait  a  week  nicely.  I  won't  pretend 
to  you,  old  friend — you  see,  I'm  rubbing  it  in  with  the 
'old  friend' — that  I  have  a  nest-egg  in  the  shape  of  a 
bank  book,  but  I  can  worry  along  very  well  for  a  week. 
And  if  I  find  I  can't,  I'll  let  you  know.  There  now! 
I  will,  honestly.  And  please  don't  go  yet.  Stay  and 
see  Lettie.  She  has  gone  to  a  dramatic  morning  at 
the  Waldorf.  I  thought  it  would  do  her  good  to  get 
a  little  drama — also  a  whiff  of  morning." 

He  took  his  hat.  He  had  no  fervid  desire  to  meet 
Lettie,  just  at  present. 

"Isn't  it  lovely?"  she  cried  joyously.  "Lettie  is  get- 
ting quite  fond  of  little  Robinson,  and  he  seems  to  be 
very  much  smitten.  Oh,  Charlie,  I  wish  it  would  come 
true!  Lettie  is  perfectly  useless  for  anything — but 
getting  married.  She  is  not  very  strong!  And  I'm 
developing  into  such  a  matchmaker !  I'm  always  pop- 
ping out  of  the  room,  and  leaving  them  alone.  And  at 
night  I  pretend  that  I'm  dying  to  hear  Tennyson  read 
aloud.  Between  ourselves — quite  between  ourselves, 
Charlie — I  loathe  poetry.  I  never  can  see  where  it 
comes  in.  But  Robinson  reads  it  charmingly,  and  Let- 
tie  is  most  enthusiastic.  If  I  read  it  to  her,  she  would 
be  asleep  in  two  minutes.  But  he  rolls  out  Tennyson 
insinuatingly,  and  keeps  her  awake.  It  is  most  amus- 
ing, and  I  enjoy  it  all  immensely.  Of  course,  it 
is  like  my  luck  to  be  cut  off  from  theatre  tickets.  .  .  . 
But  there  are  other  things.  At  present  I'm  trying  to 
make  him  believe  that  Lettie  is  a  splendid  cook  and 
housewife.  Rosina  is  making  all  sorts  of  dainties  from 


352  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

the  Delmonico  cook-book.  And  I  lie.  I  tell  him  that 
Lettie  made  them." 

She  had  forgotten  herself,  and  though  he  had  his 
hat  in  his  hand,  ready  to  go,  he  felt  that  it  did  her  good 
to  talk.  He  was  in  no  hurry. 

"In  reality,"  she  went  on,  "Lettie  can't  cook  an  egg. 
As  for  boiling  potatoes — she  simply  hasn't  an  idea  on 
the  subject.  Isn't  it  strange?  And  yet  she  clamors 
to  be  married.  I  suppose  it's  rather  horrid  to  say  of 
one's  sister  that  she  clamors  for  marriage.  But  she 
does,  Charlie.  Nothing  really  appeals  to  a  man  so 
much  as  housewifedom,  does  it?  So  I  force  Lettie  to 
make  beds,  and  dust  things,  and  she  is  too  screamingly 
funny.  She  wept  yesterday  because  the  quilt  wouldn't 
stay  tucked  down.  She  thinks  sweeping  indecent  and 
unnecessary." 

"And  don't  you,  Sallie  ?"  he  asked. 

"I  did,"  she  replied,  with  a  sigh.  "But  I'm  chang- 
ing. I  can  see  a  good  many  mistakes  that  I  have 
made.  I'll  tell  you  something,  Charlie.  Swear  you 
won't  laugh.  If  you  laugh,  I'm  done  for,  and  I  shall 
hate  you.  See,  I've  left  off  my — my  war  paint." 

She  held  up  her  face,  clear,  white,  and  thin,  for  his 
inspection.  He  had  noticed  a  difference,  but  his  mas- 
culine perception  had  not  been  able  to  explain  it.  He 
looked  embarrassed,  in  spite  of  himself — as  he  had 
done  so  often  in  the  old  days  when  Sallie  insisted  upon 
saying  things  that  were  usually  left  unsaid.  He  felt 
that  he  should  have  been  immensely  pleased,  but,  odd- 
ly enough,  he  experienced  no  sense  of  satisfaction.  He 
had  grown  accustomed  to  a  particular  kind  of  Sallie, 
and  could  not  be  overwhelmingly  radiant  at  the  alter- 
ation. But  he  said  haltingly  that  he  was  glad,  be- 
cause it  was  the  correct  thing  to  say. 

"Wait  till  you  read  my  love  stories,"  she  said  mis- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  353 

chievously.  "Only  wait,  and  I  think  they  will  exceed 
your  fondest  expectations." 

"But" — his  voice  was  mistrustful — "you  don't  in- 
tend to  do  anything  dreadful,  Sallie?  No  problems, 
please,  and  no — no  improper  situations — and — and  no 
decollete  language." 

"My  poor  old  reputation!"  she  cried,  and  she  felt 
saddened.  "Can  I  never  shed  it?  Though  I  discard 
war  paint,  must  I  still  forever  be  doomed  to  the  style 
that  made  me?  Yes,  it  made  me,  Charlie,  and  you 
must  admit  it.  But  don't  be  afraid.  It  is  all  over. 
I  sha'n't  disgrace  you  and  I  mean  to  succeed  in  the  new 
line  that  you  have  offered  to  me.  I  think — I  seriously 
think  I  shall  be  Sarah  in  future.  Nobody  could 
ever  accuse  a  Sarah  of  frivolity." 

But  when  he  had  gone  she  locked  herself  in  her  room 
and  cried  steadily  for  two  hours.  Everything  was  so 
horribly  vacant,  and  she  missed  Owldom  terribly. 
Later  in  the  day  she  rode  down  to  City  Hall  Park 
and  stood  there,  and  looked  at  everything  .  .  .  that 
she  had  abandoned.  Her  only  consolation  lay  in  the 
fact  that  if  the  nest  no  longer  sheltered  her,  it  at  any 
rate — temporarily — was  debarred  from  enclosing  Jack 
Childers. 


D 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

HE  task  of  manufacturing  "romance"  for  kitch- 
en minds  was  at  first  extremely  discourag- 
ing, and  it  was  some  time  before  Sallie  Syd- 
enham  managed  to  win  the  approval  of  Mr. 
Eglinton.  She  could  not  quite  realize  the  strength  of 
the  conventions  that  assign  the  high-falutin'  "style"  to 
the  low-salutin'  intellect.  Her  first  story  was  returned, 
because  she  had  insisted  upon  alluding  to  "legs"  in- 
stead of  to  "limbs,"  and  was  improper  enough  to 
speak  of  "going  to  bed"  instead  of  "retiring."  Fur- 
thermore, she  had  not  realized  the  fact  that  in  the  lit- 
erature of  fastidious  servant-girls  heroines  were  never 
permitted  to  "undress"  .  .  .  they  merely  "disrobed." 

"I  might  also  remark,"  wrote  Mr.  Eglinton,  "that 
you  are  too  realistic  when  you  picture  your  heroine  eat- 
ing. If  you  could  arrange  to  make  her  toy  with  a  few 
hothouse  grapes  it  would  be  preferable.  You  must 
remember  that  you  are  writing  for  cooks,  and  that  to 
entertain  them  you  must  steer  as  far  away  from  sordid 
reality  as  you  can.  Thus,  when  you  daringly  describe 
a  meal,  you  are  recalling  their  daily  life  to  them.  They 
are  anxious  to  forget  it." 

Sallie  began  to  loathe  these  heroines — all  cast  in  one 
mould.  She  saw  them,  with  their  atrociously  small 
waists,  their  bouncing  hips,  and  their  violet  eyes,  and 
they  irritated  her.  Mr.  Eglinton  begged  her  to  model 
her  "creations"  upon  those  of  "The  Duchess,"  Rosa 
Nouchette  Carey,  and — of  course — the  eternal,  the  in- 
fernal author  of  "Dora  Thorne."  So  she  made  her 
heroines  governesses,  because  tradition  demanded  it. 
They  were  always  singularly  beautiful,  but  she  was 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  355 

not  allowed,  by  her  cast-iron  rules,  to  clothe  them  nat- 
tily. They  wore  simple  alpaca  gowns,  and — for  even- 
ing decoration — a  solitary  red  rose  was  placed  in  their 
hair,  or  a  ribbon  around  their  neck.  And  yet  they  al- 
ways scintillated!  In  a  crowded  room,  with  titled 
beauties  all  aglow  with  Tiffany  diamonds  and  Paquin 
gowns,  the  simple  alpaca  and  the  red  rose  went  straight 
to  the  hero's  heart. 

Once  or  twice  Sallie  rebelled — but  it  was  useless. 
It  was  impossible  for  her  to  believe  that  human  beings 
could  be  interested  in  these  ladies.  Even  when  they 
wept,  they  never  suffered  from  red  noses,  like  ordinary 
women.  They  were  rescued  by  the  hero  from  boats 
that  capsized,  but  they  emerged  from  the  vasty  depths 
looking  more  exquisite  than  ever.  Under  circum- 
stances that  would  render  a  Venus  hideous,  these  stere- 
otyped heroines  never  budged  from  their  Gibraltar-like 
loveliness.  They  passed  sleepless  nights — it  was  their 
favorite  occupation — but  they  appeared  at  the  break- 
fast-table next  morning,  tired,  yet  still  maddeningly 
beautiful.  They  grew  thin  upon  unrequited  love,  but 
their  figure  remained  svelte  and  lost  not  a  curve. 

But  it  was  their  immaculate  goodness  that  tried  Sal- 
lie  most  acutely.  She  longed — oh,  how  she  longed ! — 
to  make  them  go  wrong  .  .  .  occasionally  .  .  .  just 
for  a  treat  ...  for  a  little  outing,  as  it  were.  Mr. 
Eglinton  was  adamant.  They  might  totter  on  the 
brink,  they  might  frivol  on  the  verge  as  long  as  pos- 
sible, but  ...  she  must  pull  them  back.  They  must 
never  lose  the  sympathy  of  their  strange,  convention- 
hungry  public.  It  was  in  vain  that  Sallie  implored  a 
privilege  or  two.  Might  she  substitute  a  typewriter 
for  a  governess?  Could  the  heroine  die  at  the  end? 
Oh,  please  .  .  .  please !  The  editor  brought  her  back 
with  a  vicious  tug  to  an  appreciation  of  a  situation  that 


356  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

never  varied.  It  appalled  her  at  first,  and  she  felt  that 
she  should  never  succeed. 

And  the  heroes!  They  were  fully  as  detestable  as 
the  girls  they  loved.  They  never  seemed  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  for  a  living.  They  passed  their  lives  gaz- 
ing into  violet  eyes,  and  flouting  the  Guineveres  and 
Ermyntrudes  in  the  Tiffany  diamonds  and  the  Paquin 
frocks.  Their  wildest  aspirations  never  went  beyond 
the  girl  in  the  alpaca  gown — especially  when  the  blood- 
red  rose  nestled  in  her  hair  at  night.  They  were  al- 
ways six-footers — nothing  else  would  do.  Five-foot- 
eleven  would  have  been  reckless  novelty.  She  was 
allowed  to  intimate  that  they  had  "lived"  before  they 
met  the  heroine,  but  was  not  permitted  to  say  how, 
when,  or  where.  Sallie  pored  over  the  pages  of  the 
Family  Herald,  which  Mr.  Eglinton  had  recommended 
to  her,  and  marvelled  at  the  eternal,  unyielding  same- 
ness. And  she  acquired  certain  prescribed  expres- 
sions that  amused  her  immensely.  She  found  that  the 
heroines  could  be  "mutinous"  and  "riantes;"  that  they 
might  pout  and  make  "moues"  and  she  found  that 
whenever  they  ran  away  from  the  "ladies"  who  em- 
ployed them  it  was  etiquette  for  them  to  "go  out  into 
the  night."  Even  if  a  broad  noonday  sun  had  just 
claimed  attention,  they  "went  out  into  the  night."  It 
was  all  so  gorgeously  cut  and  dried. 

It  occurred  to  Miss  Sydenham  that  feminine  story- 
tellers were  very  much  like  the  little  girl  who  had  a 
little  curl.  When  they  were  good,  they  were  very, 
very  good,  and  when  they  were  bad,  they  were  horrid. 
She  was  unable  to  bridge  the  gulf  that  separated  "the 
author  of  'Dora  Thome' "  from  Marie  Corelli,  or  to 
leap  across  the  chasm  dividing  "The  Duchess"  from 
Sarah  Grand. 

Gradually,  however,  ske  acquired  the  knack  of  artis- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  357 

tically  cutting  out  these  "tailor-made"  romances.  It 
was  a  shock  to  her  when  she  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Eglinton  congratulating  her  upon  her  work.  Her 
stories  were  far  better,  he  wrote,  than  those  of  her 
predecessor.  Sallie  wondered  what  this  predecessor 
could  possibly  have  done.  And  very  soon  it  all  came 
quite  easily  to  her.  She  was  able  to  talk  to  the  grocer 
or  the  butcher  in  the  very  midst  of  an  eloquent  out- 
break on  the  part  of  her  heroine.  She  succeeded  in 
plying  the  hero  with  a  choice  series  of  gusty  adjectives 
while  Rosina  brushed  her  hair.  She  could  watch  pota- 
toes cooking  while  she  described  the  appearance  of 
the  heroine  at  Lady  Tomnoddy's  dance,  and  once  she 
made  a  pie  while  the  hero  was  proposing  on  his  knees ! 
She  left  him  there,  to  ascertain  that  the  oven  was  not 
"too  quick."  She  called  her  girls  Gladys,  Hyacinth, 
or  Jacqueline — the  manuscript  would  have  been  re- 
turned by  special  messenger  if  she  had  dared  to  ven- 
ture a  Jane,  Mary,  or  Susan.  Her  men  ranged  from 
Reginald  to  Archibald — John,  Jack,  and  Jim  being  vici- 
ously vetoed. 

Sallie  could  not  bear  to  read  her  stories  when  they 
appeared  in  type.  It  was  then  that  they  seemed  most 
naked  and  unashamed.  Her  only  interest  lay  in  the 
remuneration — always  a  bad  sign — and  that  was  suffi- 
ciently large  and  satisfactory.  She  kept  the  wolf  far 
— far  away  from  her  door,  and  she  realized  that  she 
had  found  a  trade  that  paid.  For  it  was  a  trade,  with 
a  vengeance !  Her  returns  were,  in  fact,  more  ample 
than  those  she  had  speared  in  Newspaper  Row  .  .  . 
but,  how  she  missed  Owldom !  She  was  deeply  grate- 
ful for  the  livelihood  that  Charlie  Covington  had 
opened  for  her;  but  how  dull,  how  empty,  how  unin- 
spiring it  was,  compared  with  the  incessant  excitement, 
the  exuberant  doubts,  the  effervescent  intercourse,  and 


358  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

that  strange,  delightful  feeling  of  being  "in  it,"  always 
inseparable  from  journalism.  She  had  lived  .  .  .  now 
she  merely  vegetated. 

This  constant  communion  with  heroines  who  never 
had  a  freckle  or  a  mole — or  even  a  dear  little  secluded, 
unpretentious  wart — warped  her  mind.  She  felt  nar- 
rowed by  the  eternal  association  with  men  who  never 
put  their  feet  on  the  table  and  who  talked  poetry  at 
breakfast  time  over  a  boiled  egg!  It  was  demoraliz- 
ing. And  she  knew  in  her  heart  of  hearts  that  this 
special  brand  of  kitchen  literature  was  in  reality  more 
subtly  immoral  and  more  inwardly  sensual  than  the 
most  violent  eruptions  of  authors  credited  with  "calling 
a  spade  a  spade."  These  cooks'  novels  were  de- 
grading in  all  that  they  implied  to  those  who  were 
foolish  enough  to  think  about  them.  However,  it  was 
safe  to  infer  that  nobody  thought  about  them. 

The  childless  matrons  in  Sallie's  house,  now  that  she 
lived  a  life  of  seeming  respectability,  with  a  sister, 
evinced  an  inclination  to  call  upon  her.  Sallie  nipped 
it  in  the  bud,  much  to  Rosina's  chagrin,  and  after  sub- 
mitting to  one  rigid  catechism  that  caused  her  to  ex- 
perience the  agonies  of  cross-examination,  she  closed 
the  door  to  the  solicitous  ladies.  They  put  her  on  the 
defensive,  and  she  had  nothing  that  she  could  defend — 
as  far  as  they  were  concerned. 

She  sought  the  society  of  poor  little  Mrs.  Stuyve- 
sant,  impelled  by  the  sense  of  obligation  that  she  felt. 
She  lavished  candies  and  toys  upon  the  actor's  child, 
and  made  an  effort  to  cheer  the  lonely  life  of  the  dis- 
carded wife.  And  it  was  from  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  that 
she  learned  the  fateful,  portentous  news  for  which  she 
had  waited  so  eagerly.  Arthur  Stuyvesant  was  as 
good  as  his  word.  He  solved  the  intricate  problem 
in  his  own  way — which  was  apparently  the  only  way, 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  359 

in  spite  of  the  severe  blow  that  it  dealt  to  the  proprie- 
ties. 

Sallie  was  aghast  at  the  news — which  was  confirmed 
later  by  Charlie  Covington.  Arthur  Stuyvesant  had 
gone  to  London,  and  had  taken  Ivy  Hampton  with  him. 
He  had  shaken  the  dust  of  America  from  his  feet  for- 
ever, and  had  resolved  to  try  a  country  where  pri- 
vate scandals  were  not  ventilated,  and  where  the  actor, 
when  he  had  finished  acting,  passed  unnoticed  in  the 
crowd.  His  departure  was  noted  in  all  the  papers,  but 
Miss  Hampton's  name  was  unmentioned.  He  inti- 
mated, in  an  interview,  that  they  were  waiting  for  him 
in  London.  And  Sallie  knew  that  his  punishment  had 
come,  and  that  it  would  be  dire.  One  London  engage- 
ment would  end  him,  and  then  ...  an  abortive,  fa- 
tiguing, uneventful,  fruitless  round  of  the  provinces. 
Men  like  Arthur  Stuyvesant,  as  she  knew,  could  not 
live  without  the  notoriety  of  the  American  stage.  They 
might  profess  to  despise  it — when  it  took  on  unpleas- 
ant twists  and  relentless  curves — but  it  was  the  breath 
of  their  life.  They  might  look  upon  the  silent  "glory" 
of  Europe  as  a  relief — but  the  relief  would  be  only  too 
temporary.  No  Tantalus  would  be  tried  as  sorely  as 
Arthur  Stuyvesant,'  reared  in  the  vif,  chatty  atmo- 
sphere of  New  York,  and  condemned  forever  to  the 
shadows  and  the  innocuous  muteness  of  London.  Ex- 
ceptional merit  only  could  save  him,  and  he  had  none  of 
it.  Certainly — most  certainly — Arthur  Stuyvesant 
would  not  "live  happily  ever  afterwards." 

For  the  sake  of  his  wife,  whom  she  grew  to  love, 
Sallie  tried  to  feel  vindictive  and  relentless.  But  she 
could  not  quite  succeed.  He  had  solved  a  hopeless 
problem  .  .  .  and  Ivy  Hampton  had  quietly  disap- 
peared. Sallie  knew  that  Jack  Childers  had  never 
loved  her.  Better  this  stealthy  departure  than  the  in- 


360  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

cessant  threat  of  a  hideous  scandal — a  veritable  Damo- 
clesian  sword. 

She  thought  pitifully  of  poor  old  Mrs.  Hampton, 
looking  insolently  through  the  gold  lorgnettes  and  see- 
ing nothing.  She  pictured  the  lonely  woman  con- 
fronted with  this  domestic  disaster,  and  she  wondered 
.  .  .  wondered  .  .  .  what  Jack  Childers  would  do. 
The  girl  with  the  silver-gold  hair  and  the  Priscilla-like 
demeanor  had  gone,  never  to  return,  and  Sallie  fore- 
saw the  end — probably  the  conventional,  dismal  end  of 
unbridled  woman — hope  gone,  love  vanished,  ties  sev- 
ered— solitude  and  despair.  There  were  other  possi- 
bilities; but  Sallie  could  not  guess  at  them.  She  was 
unsophisticated  in  her  sophistication.  Her  world  was, 
after  all,  extremely  limited. 

She  lay,  wakeful  and  alert,  through  what  are  inaptly 
called  "the  silent  watches  of  the  night."  The  irony  of 
the  phrase!  "Silent  watches" — when  the  pulses  are 
doing  double  duty,  when  the  sensations  of  the  cor- 
poreal husk  may  be  deadened,  but  the  spiritual  facul- 
ties beat  a  wild  tattoo!  "Silent  watches" — when  the 
sub-conscious  self  emerges  and  prowls,  and  visions 
blaze  before  the  undimmed  eyes  of  the  awakened  spirit ! 

A  fierce  desire  to  see  Jack  Childers  possessed  her. 
This  horrible  thing  that  had  happened  would  sorely  af- 
flict him.  The  blow  to  his  family  pride,  all  merely  per- 
sonal sentiments  being  eliminated,  would  be  severe, 
and  perhaps  irreparable.  If  she  could  but  see  him! 
If  he  would  only  come  to  her !  She  reckoned  out  the 
time — what  o'clock  it  was  in  San  Francisco,  and  she 
imagined  that  he  had,  perhaps,  just  retired  for  the 
night.  (As  a  family  story  paper  contributor,  she  did 
not  dare  think  of  him  as  "going  to  bed.") 

Then  she  rose  and  prayed — as  she  had  once  prayed 
before — and  poured  out  her  soul  in  longing.  She  could 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  361 

feel  the  power  of  her  strenuous  will  oozing  from  her 
brain.  It  went  forth  in  gusts  .  .  .  and  she  believed 
that  he  would  know  that  she  was  there  .  .  .  trying  to 
reach  him.  When  she  had  finished  praying,  she  silent- 
ly concentrated  her  mental  energies,  those  infinite  po- 
tencies of  which  men  still  know  little  and  care  less ! 

And  through  the  ether  strange  electric  waves  were 
flashed,  from  the  mind  of  the  sender  to  the  mind  of  the 
receiver,  without  the  agency  of  the  recognized  organs 
of  sense.  She  sat  there,  scarcely  conscious,  her  head 
bent,  her  eyes  closed,  her  attitude  limp  and  sagged, 
while  her  will  sought  the  mind  of  Jack  Childers  far 
away  in  San  Francisco,  at  the  other  side  of  the  vast 
American  continent,  and  tried  subtly  to  impress  it. 

And  of  what  happened  ...  in  the  years  to  come 
.  .  .  Jack  Childers  never  spoke.  Like  most  men,  he 
dreaded  the  sneers  of  a  material  world  that,  with  easy 
vehemence,  applauds  the  marvels  of  Marconi  and  buys 
stock  in  "wireless" — only  to  dub  the  far  greater  won- 
ders of  the  human  brain  unscientific,  visionary,  and 
"superstitious."'  The  intolerant  spirit  that  burned 
"witches"  in  the  Middle  Ages  lives  to-day,  and  of  what 
occurred  to  Jack  Childers  that  night  in  San  Francisco 
he  did  not  dare  to  tell.  The  explanation  would  have 
been  so  readily  vouchsafed.  It  was  a  pipe-dream !  It 
was  hallucination!  It  was  .  .  .  anything  that  could 
be  amiably  dismissed  as  unsubstantial. 

For  in  his  room  at  the  hotel  in  the  Californian  city, 
as  he  lay  in  his  bed,  and  before  he  had  slept,  he  saw 
Sallie  on  her  knees — plainly,  clearly,  and  unmistak- 
ably. Her  head  was  bent,  her  eyes  closed,  her  attitude 
limp  and  sagged ;  but  if  ever  he  had  felt  certain  of  any- 
thing in  his  life,  it  was  of  the  fact  that  at  that  moment 
she  was  calling.  What  she  desired,  why  she  longed 
for  him — these  were  problems  that  he  could  not  an- 


362  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

swer.  But  there — in  the  darkness  of  his  room — he 
saw  her,  luminous  and  radiant,  and  he  knew  that  she 
needed  him.  It  was  so  real,  so  veridical,  that  he 
jumped  from  his  bed  and  approached  the  spot  that  the 
vision  had  occupied.  It  faded  as  he  came  up  to  it. 

Jack  Childers  was  a  most  matter-of-fact  person,  and 
he  "never  took  any  stock"  (his  favorite  expression)  in 
the  fantastic  or  the  psychical.  The  workings  of  a  too 
exuberant  imagination  he  invariably  ascribed  to  a  dis- 
ordered digestion.  He  had  often  said  that  Sweden- 
borg  lived  before  the  days  of  little  liver  pills.  He  had 
uttered  ribald,  smoking-room  jokes  on  the  subject  of 
Joan  of  Arc.  And  now  ...  he  was  obliged  to  be- 
lieve the  apparent  evidence  of  his  own  apparent  senses. 
This  was  no  dream ;  this  was  no  hallucination ;  this 
was  no  unreliable  imagining.  He  could  not  sleep,  but 
tossed  and  thought,  and  repose  would  not  come  until 
he  had  definitely  and  irrevocably  made  up  his  mind 
to  leave  San  Francisco  by  the  first  train  for  New  York. 

He  had  not  been  thinking  of  Sallie  Sydenham  before 
going  to  bed.  While  she  had  been  in  his  thoughts  fre- 
quently— far  too  frequently — since  his  arrival  in  Cali- 
fornia, he  had  pondered  that  night  over  other  and  less 
agreeable  subjects.  He  had  been  involved  in  news- 
paper work,  which  had  threatened  to  chain  him  there 
for  at  least  another  month.  The  swift  rush  of  her 
mind  reached  his.  Space  counted  for  nothing. 
Through  the  spiritual  realm  her  longing  propelled  it- 
self, until  it  harbored  in  that  room  of  the  distant  hotel. 

Even  to  himself,  nexfmorning,  Jack  Childers  scoffed 
at  the  strange,  resistless  fact.  But  he  packed  his  port- 
manteau, arranged  his  valises,  paid  his  hotel  bill,  and, 
consigning  his  journalistic  duties  to  futurity,  started 
on  the  homeward  journey.  Reared  in  materialism, 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  credit  that  to  which  sci- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  363 

ence  gives  the  cold  shudder,  because  it  is  not  labelled 
Edison  or  Tesla.  He  gave  himself  up  unthinkingly, 
unquestioningly  to  the  potent  impulse  that  he  disdained 
to  explain.  He  realized  his  consuming  desire  to  reach 
New  York  and  Sallie  Sydenham.  He  would  go 
straight  to  her  house,  because  she  wanted  him.  And 
as  the  day  progressed,  and  the  midnight  telepathic  ex- 
perience was  further  distanced,  he  simply  knew  that 
he  craved  for  Sallie,  and  was  going  to  New  York  to 
gratify  that  craving.  He  realized  then,  as  he  had  real- 
ized before,  that  Owldom  had  been  very  dull  and 
opaque  without  her,  and  he  confided  to  himself  in  a 
burst  of  self-confidence  what  he  had  never  dared  to 
admit  before — that  he  had  left  New  York  to  live  down 
the  void  that  her  absence  had  caused.  He  forgot  the 
vision  in  the  little  room  of  the  hotel,  or  if  he  remem- 
bered it — well,  the  lobster  salad  of  which  he  had  par- 
taken at  supper  had  been  expressly  forbidden  him  by 
Mrs.  Hampton's  own  pet  doctor.  But  he  reached  New 
York,  and  he  reached  Sallie.  Those  were,  after  all, 
the  main  points. 

The  potency  of  the  force  that  had  taken  possession 
of  him  in  San  Francisco  remained  with  him  until  he 
reached  Sallie's  house,  to  which  he  went  directly  upon 
arrival.  It  was  there  when  he  rang  her  bell;  it  was 
buoyant  when  Rosina  admitted  him  to  the  tiny  parlor, 
at  an  unseemly  hour  of  the  morning.  Then  .  .  .  and 
then  only,  it  left  him.  And  he  marvelled  at  himself. 
A  hesitant  sense  of  helplessness  seized  him.  Why  had 
he  rushed  to  Sallie,  when  such  a  proceeding  was  emi- 
nently incorrect,  if  not  improper?  Duty  surely  indi- 
cated a  path  that  led  to  Ivy  Hampton.  Decency — 
pure,  unsequestered  decency — should  have  taken  him 
to  Mrs.  Hampton  and  Central  Park  West.  Yet  here 
he  was,  for  no  conceivable  reason,  in  the  midst  of 


364  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

Sallie  Sydenham's  goods  and  chattels.  What  should 
he  say  to  her?  How  explain  himself?  What  would 
she  think?  What  could  she  think? 

Rosina,  fruitily  mysterious,  repaired  to  Sallie's  room, 
awoke  her,  and  presented  Jack  Childers'  card — after 
having  carefully  studied  it  en  route  with  unsatisfac- 
tory results.  And  Rosina  was  even  more  astonished 
when  she  saw  the  sudden  radiance  in  Sallie's  eyes. 
Her  amaze  reached  its  climax  when  Miss  Sydenham 
hopped  out  of  bed,  and,  throwing  her  arms  around 
Rosina,  almost  strangled  her  in  an  embrace  as  she  mur- 
mured, "I'm  so  glad.  I'm  so  glad." 

It  was  an  unseemly  hour,  most  assuredly — the  hour 
at  which  none  but  the  heroines  of  Sallie's  Sarah  Jane 
romances  could  possibly  appear  at  their  best.  The 
morning  limitations  of  even  the  loveliest  woman  are 
but  too  surely  defined.  Sallie  was  not  one  of  the  love- 
liest women,  by  any  means;  and  she  was  fully  aware 
that,  at  her  morning  kipper,  she  was  not  dangerously  at- 
tractive. Her  heroines  would,  of  course,  at  this  young 
age  of  the  day,  have  been  found  in  the  garden,  pluck- 
ing roses,  and  tripping,  in  Parisian  bottines,  over  the 
dewy  grass  and  lawn.  They  would  have  owned  fair, 
bloom-flecked  cheeks  and  an  adorable  negligee.  Guine- 
vere, while  her  breakfast  was  cooking,  invariably 
quoted  Shelley  and  Keats  when  Archibald  found  her 
gathering  blossoms  in  the  sweet  old  garden  by  the 
river.  Alas !  Sallie  looked  through  her  window,  and 
saw  a  "backyard."  There  were  "pulley-lines"  and 
vistas  of  unconcealed  lingerie.  It  was  not  poetic.  She 
felt  inclined  to  repine. 

She  did  not  throw  open  her  wardrobe  and  select  a 
delicate  crepe-de-Chine  morning-gown,  as  Ermyntrude 
had  done  in  her  last  story.  Rosina  helped  her  to  hang 
on  a  "rainy  day"  skirt,  and  to  fasten  a  simple  cache- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  365 

mire  blouse  .  .  .  and  she  was  ready.  It  should  have 
been  different,  but  ...  it  wasn't.  And  she  sorely 
needed  a  cup  of  tea  and  just  one  piece  of  toast  ...  in 
the  absence  of  rose-leaves  and  dew-drops. 

Jack  Childers,  when  she  joined  him — oddly  embar- 
rassed, unusually  subdued — thought  that  she  looked 
paler  and  thinner ;  the  frankness  of  her  expression  was 
lacking;  the  jolly  good-fellowship  of  her  demeanor 
was  no  longer  evidential.  He  was  utterly  at  a  loss 
what  to  say,  for  his  sense  of  surprise  at  finding  himself 
there  was  constantly  increasing. 

"I — I  am  not  quite  sure  why  I  came,  Sallie,"  he  said. 
"It  is  an  unwarranted  intrusion  on  my  part.  I — I 
seem  to  have  imagined" — with  an  uneasy  laugh — "that 
— that  you  wanted  me." 

She,  too,  was  momentarily  unable  to  pierce  the  thick 
confusion  of  her  mood.  But  her  woman's  instinct 
came  to  her  rescue,  and  she  tried  to  put  him  at  his  ease, 
and  to  lurk  in  the  shadow  of  the  confidence  that  she 
exuded. 

"I  did,"  she  said  simply;  "and  ...  I  do.  But  we 
will  have  breakfast.  You  have  just  returned  from 
San  Francisco  .  .  .  you  must  be  fagged.  I  am  so 
glad  that  you  came  here  first." 

He  had  not  told  her  that  this  was  the  case.  But  he 
manifested  no  surprise,  for  it  all  seemed  quite  natural. 
They  went  into  the  dining-room  and  sat  down  to 
breakfast  alone.  Lettie  was  still  asleep,  for  the  morn- 
ing was  still  ridiculously  young.  It  seemed  like  the 
middle  of  the  night. 

"I  had  no  right  to  come  here,"  he  said  presently. 
"It  was  a  detestable  thing  to  do.  I  should  have  gone 
home  ...  to  my  aunt  ...  to  Ivy.  There  is  no  ex- 
cuse for  it  ...  I  cannot  quite  understand  it.  You 
would  be  justified  in  ordering  me  out.  But  you  are 


3 66  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

charming  and  hospitable,  and  instead  of  reproaches,  I 
get  .  .  .  bacon  and  eggs." 

He  tried  to  talk  lightly ;  to  reassume  the  flippant 
spirit  of  mere  comradeship  that  had  been  the  raison 
d'etre  of  most  of  their  previous  intercourse.  Sallie 
understood  everything.  »  She  realized  why  he  was 
there.  He  had  responded  to  her  summons.  Her  grati- 
tude was  immense.  A  splendid  sense  of  security,  in 
the  certainty  of  having  tested  a  truth  more  beautiful, 
more  rational,  more  convincing  than  old  "religious" 
forms  over  which  the  world  has  fought,  lulled  her  into 
happiness.  For  the  rest  of  her  life  she  would  believe 
.  .  .  because  she  knew.  Faith  was  pretty,  but  cer- 
tainty was  more  substantial.  Her  ethereality  had 
spoken  across  a  continent  to  his.  Her  message  had 
carried.  Why  should  their  material  entities  feel  em- 
barrassment ? 

"I  feel  that  I  am  an  awful  cad,"  he  went  on,  as  she 
was  silent,  "and  you,  above  all  others,  will  despise  me. 
I  have  a  confession  to  make.  I'm  engaged  to  Ivy — I 
know — but — but  I  can't  help  it.  When  you  left  the 
office,  Sallie,  I  had  no  idea — not  the  faintest  suspicion 
of  an  idea — how  the  land  lay.  I  had  always  thought 
of  you  as  such  a  jolly  good  fellow — you  remember? 
But  when  you  had  gone  ...  it  is  dishonorable  of  me 
to  talk  like  this  ...  I  knew  the  truth.  And  I  went 
to  San  Francisco,  just  to  try  and  forget  you.  Now — 
now,"  he  exclaimed,  "turn  me  out,  if  you  like,  and  I'll 
go.  I  deserve  it.  I'm  a  beast." 

Sallie  sat  very  still,  with  a  raging  sense  of  revolu- 
tionary joy  in  her  bosom.  Life  had  never  seemed  so 
beautiful  to  her  as  it  did  at  that  moment.  The  gayety 
of  heart  that  she  had  known  so  little  of  late  returned  to 
her.  Her  good  old  sense  of  humor  came  back  with  a 
slap-bang.  She  sat  there,  looking  like  an  early  morn- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  367 

ing  fright,  and  he  was  saying  these  exquisite  things  to 
her,  with  a  rasher  of  bacon  and  a  demoralized  egg  in 
front  of  him.  She  felt  slightly  hysterical.  Her  moods 
met,  and  eddied. 

''Say  something,  Sallie,"  he  went  on  in  low  tones. 
"For  Heaven's  sake,  tell  me  that  you  do  not  loathe  me. 
I  never  really  loved  Ivy.  You  know  that.  It  was  a 
peaceful,  unruffled  sort  of  cousinly  affection,  and  I 
thought  that  it  would  do  nicely.  Since  then  ...  I 
have  been  to  San  Francisco.  Help  me  out,  dear  old 
girl.  I  can  never  marry  her  now  .  .  .  and  what  shall 
I  do?  Isn't  it  hopeless?  Isn't  it  hateful?  I  have 
always  prided  myself  upon  doing  the  correct  thing  .  .  . 
correctly." 

And  then  she  spoke,  tenderly,  and  with  needless  care 
to  conceal  the  tumult  of  joy  that  raged  within  her. 

"You  will  never  marry  Ivy,"  she  said.  "Your — your 
cousin — has — has  gone.  She  was  never  worthy  of 
you.  She  deceived  you." 

She  told  him  all,  and  tried — hopeless  task  though  she 
felt  it  to  be — to  soften  the  shock  that  she  dealt  to  his 
family  pride.  But  what  bliss  to  realize  that  family 
pride  was  the  only  thing  she  had  to  cope  with ! 

If  he  had  loved  Ivy,  then  the  heartlessness  of  her 
duty  would  have  appalled  her.  Jack  Childers  was 
aghast.  He  staggered  beneath  the  incredible  revela- 
tion. The  ground  seemed  to  recede  beneath  his  feet. 

Anything  else  he  could  have  believed  .  .  .  and 
credulity  would  have  been  easy.  In  his  chivalry  he 
scorned  to  dwell  for  an  instant  upon  all  that  this  release 
would  mean  to  him.  He  saw  only  the  blow  to  his  own 
kith  and  kin — the  tarnish  and  the  blemish. 

Sallie  hovered  about  him,  femininely  solicitous — al- 
most maternal.  Her  love  for  him  was  spiritualized  as 
she  tended  him  in  this  moment  of  his  tribulation. 


368  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

He  hurled  question  after  question  at  her,  and  she  gave 
him  the  entire  unvarnished  truth.  She  concealed  noth- 
ing, for,  not  being  a  conventional  heroine,  she  saw  no 
good  and  sufficient  reason  why  she  should  disguise 
from  him  any  detail  of  the  work  she  had  done. 

Moreover,  it  would  have  been  impossible.  He  was 
hungry  to  hear  all,  clamorous  for  every  corner  of  the 
history.  The  assignment  for  which  she  had  craved — 
her  moods  grown  serious — the  clouded  brilliancy  of 
her  work — and  the  last  episode  of  all,  when,  with  repu- 
tation besmirched,  she  had  suffered  for  him  and  for 
the  girl  to  whom  he  was  betrothed — everything  was 
explained.  He  tortured  himself.  For  the  first  time 
in  his  life  the  edged  teeth  of  remorse  sank  into  his 
conscience. 

He  turned  to  her  with  a  look  in  his  eyes  that 
she  had  never  seen  there  before  .  .  .  that  she  had 
never  imagined  possible  in  the  case  of  easy-going, 
worldly  wise  Jack  Childers.  She  had  stirred  him  to 
his  depths. 

Suddenly  he  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  held  her 
there,  strained,  while  the  full  force  of  her  splendid  de- 
votion was  utterly  realized.  Neither  spoke.  It  was 
the  one  supreme  moment  of  their  lives. 

It  was  Sallie  who  recalled  him  to  earth,  pushing 
aside  the  "reluctant  maidenhood"  that  should  have 
claimed  her  at  such  a  moment. 

"I  am  afraid,"  she  said,  with  a  proud  smile,  "that  I 
always  loved  you,  Jack.  Yes — from  the  very  first — I 
loved  you.  It  used  to  hurt  me — so  much — when  you 
called  me  a — a  jolly  good  fellow,  and  when  you  seemed 
to  look  upon  me  as  just  a  wheel  in  the  machinery  of 
Newspaper  Row.  I  did  not  acknowledge  the  truth  to 
myself — at  least,  I  tried  not  to  do  so." 

He  released  his  hold  upon  her,  somewhat  unwilling- 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  369 

ly,  as  though  he  were  half  afraid  that  she  would  run 
away.  And  Sallie  smiled  happily,  for  it  seemed  to  her 
that  men  were  never  afraid  of  losing  a  woman  until 
the  woman  was  afraid  of  being  lost! 

"You  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it,  little  girl,"  he  said, 
remorsefully. 

"No,"  she  declared,  "I  have  had  good  friends.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  dear- old  Charlie  Covington — " 

"I  used  to  think,"  he  interrupted,  "that  Charlie  was 
in  love  with  you." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Loyalty  forbade  her 
to  tell  even  Jack  of  that  one  troubled  episode  in  her 
intercourse  with  their  mutual  friend.  It  should  be 
locked  forever  in  her  own  breast.  And  she  knew  that 
none  would  rejoice  so  unselfishly  in  the  radiancy  of 
the  future  that  was  opening  up  to  her  as  this  self-same 
altruistic  Charlie. 

"It  was  through  Charlie,"  she  went  on  later,  "that 
I  have  tided  the  storm.  It  was  he,  Mr.  Jack  Childers, 
who  gave  me  the  means  to  indulge  in  those  little  lux- 
uries"— pointing  to  the  bacon  and  eggs — "that  I  no- 
tice you  have  left." 

"You  appealed  to  him  for  help?"  he  cried  savagely. 
"And  you  would  not  ask  me  ?" 

She  was  delighted  at  the  humanity  of  his  vicious  ut- 
terance, and  she  said  primly :  "He  was  a  friend,  an  old 
friend,  and  you  .  .  .  were  not.  Besides,  even  from 
Charlie,  I  could  only  accept  the  means  of  helping  my- 
self. I've  been  writing  beautiful  love  stories,  Jack, 
and  making  lots  of  money.  I'm  quite  independent 
now.  I  need  no  assistance." 

For  two  sensible  people — journalists,  too,  if  you 
please — owls,  by  Jove ! — this  man  and  this  woman  fell 
into  a  pool  of  foolish,  driveling  dialogue,  the  parallel 
of  which  would  be  only  too  easy  to  imagine.  But  a 


370  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

sober  pen  need  not  chronicle  it.  It  would  be  quite  un- 
necessary. Jack  Childers  unbent  so  completely  that 
Newspaper  Row  would  have  had  a  fit  if  it  could  have 
been  present.  And  Sallie,  a  girl  who  should  have 
known  so  much  better,  with  her  fine  sense  of  humor 
that  could  so  readily  "guy"  all  that  sort  of  thing,  be- 
haved in  a  manner  that  can  simply  be  described  as  ut- 
terly trivial — and  completely  Brooklyn! 

Whole  rows  of  asterisks — columns  of  "stars"— ex- 
clamatory, inter jectional  notes  ad  lib.  could  alone  battle 
with  the  thorough  puerility  of  what  followed.  It  is, 
perhaps,  rather  cruel  not  to  present  Sallie  and  Jack  in 
this  ever-pleasant  kingdom  of  tootsy-wootsydom. 
Still,  Miss  Sydenham  has  posed  throughout  this  story 
as  a  trifle  unusual,  and  Mr.  Childers  was  an  editor  and 
a  labor-employing  person.  Why,  just  before  they  say 
farewell,  should  they  be  belittled,  by  an  effort  to  ex- 
hibit them  as  merely  the  most  ordinary,  human,  and 
unbudging  team  of  every-day  lovers?  It  shall  not  be 
done.  It  would  be  too  easy.  Let  us  resist  the  tempta- 
tion. 

She  was  in  his  arms  .  .  .  again  .  .  .  and  he  ... 
was  telling  her  what  every  reader  can  guess,  but  what 
every  lover  is  bound  to  emphasize.  Love  in  its  most 
persuasive  form  took  them  and  held  them  .  .  .  and 
nothing  else  mattered. 


"Tell  me  about  the  office,  Jack,"  she  said,  a  few  days 
later,  when  Lettie,  and  little  Robinson,  and  even  Ro- 
sina  had  all  grown  accustomed  to  basking  in  the  rays 
of  her  happiness ;  "I'm  simply  dying  to  know  the  latest 
news  of  dear  old  Newspaper  Row." 

He  laughed,  for  he  understood  her  sentiments. 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  371 

"There  is  not  much  to  tell,"  he  declared.  ''Green 
has  gone.  He  has  bought  a  little  newspaper  in  Penn- 
sylvania, and  has  retired  to  the  wilds  to  write  interest- 
ing paragraphs  about  the  loss  of  Widow  Jones'  cow, 
and  to  grow  expansive  over  the  new  coat  of  paint  that 
Farmer  Higgins  has  applied  to  his  barn.  It  is  simple, 
but  not  wildly  exciting." 

"And  the  journalist-esses?"  she  queried  raven- 
ously. 

"You  mean  the  terrible  Sallie  Sydenham?" — malici- 
ously. 

"No,"  she  answered  softly.  "Terrible  Sallie  has 
removed  to  the  idle  ranks  of  the  non-supporting,  or  she 
has  every  intention  of  doing  so  when  she  is  asked — " 

"By  Jove!"  he  cried  suddenly;  "I  have  taken  it  all 
for  granted.  Fool !  Idiot !  Sallie,  of  course  you  will 
— oh,  you  couldn't  refuse — hang  my  short-sighted- 
ness— " 

"Go  on,"  she  said  demurely.  "Tell  me  about  the 
journalist-esses,  and  don't  worry  about  terrible  Sallie. 
She  is  perfectly  satisfied — " 

"But  you  will  marry  me,  Sallie?"  he  asked,  in  anx- 
iety as  stupid,  as  illogical,  as  utterly  without  ground 
as  any  man  could  possibly  fish  up  from  the  most  pellu- 
cid situation. 

"Since  you  insist — "  she  replied  frivolously.  "Yes 
— thank  you.  And  even  if  you  don't  insist,  you  dear, 
silly,  old  lovely  thing — yes — also  thank  you.  Now, 
go  on  with  the  journalist-esses." 

But  there  was  further  need  of  asterisks,  columns  of 
"stars,"  exclamatory,  interjectional  notes.  Enough  of 
them  were,  in  fact,  needed  to  cause  a  famine  in  the 
best-regulated  printing  establishment  in  town.  Why 
consume  valuable  space  ? 

"Amelia  Amberg  Hutchinson,"  he  said  presently, 


372  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

"seems  to  have  grown  suddenly  old  and  fractious. 
She  has  just  started  a  new  department  called  'How  to 
Remain  Young.'  She  might  have  added,  'By  One  Who 
Doesn't  Know,'  but  she  has  no  sense  of  humor.  She  is 
rather  a  useless  encumbrance,  but  we  must  keep  her. 
I  am  glad  that  she  retired  from  the  world  of  freckles 
and  hair-restorers." 

"And  Anastasia  Atwood?" 

"Oh,  Anastasia,"  he  replied,  with  a  laugh,  "has  had 
a  sore  affliction.  Harry  has  run  away — for  good  this 
time — and  nobody  knows  where.  He  wrote  her  a  let- 
ter, in  which  he  said  sweet,  devotional  things.  He  wor- 
shipped her,  but  preferred  to  worship  at  a  distance. 
He  sold  out  his  interest  in  the  slot  machines — and  ske- 
daddled. Anastasia  is  now  grinding  out  poetry  in 
grim  despair,  and  varying  it  with  pretty  prose  articles 
on  domestic  topics.  Her  latest  was  called  'How  to 
keep  husbands  at  home.'  She  spoke  very  feelingly — 
as  one  no  longer  owning  a  husband." 

"Poor  thing,"  said  Sallie,  with  new  magnanimity, 
born  of  her  sheer,  unadulterated  happiness.  "And 
Happy  Hippy?" 

"Gone!"  cried  Jack,  lugubriously.  "Gone.  Mrs. 
Hapgood  has  retired  to  the  bourne  of  matrimony,  im- 
pelled thither — that  sounds  nice — by  the  elevator  boy. 
Really,  rather  a  catch  for  her,  Sallie.  He  was  a  very 
nice  boy,  and  quite  well-to-do.  He  told  her — at  least, 
so  the  office  says — that  while  he  had  been  engaged  in 
the  elevatorial  pursuit  of  uplifting  her  body,  she  had 
uplifted  his  soul.  Quite  neat,  eh  ?  We  all  clubbed  to- 
gether and  gave  them  a  silver  tea-set,  with  angels  fly- 
ing all  over  it.  It  was  a  good  idea,  don't  you  think, 
to  wean  his  thoughts  from  hydraulic  pressure  to  the 
simple  fluttering  of  angels'  wings?  Of  the  others, 
there  is  little  to  say.  Eva  Higgins  wrote  a  charming 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  373 

interview  the  other  day  with  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia. 
She  made  him  remark  'Ach!'  and  'Du  Liebe'  all  the 
time,  and  he  gave  himself  away  splendidly.  I  expect 
the  Kaiser  will  be  very  much  upset  about  it.  Oh  1"  he 
exclaimed  suddenly,  "I  mustn't  forget  a  choice  item 
concerning  Rita  Eisenstein.  It  will  appeal  to  you." 

"Tell  it !"  she  cried,  for  she  still  loathed  Rita.  With 
all  her  newly  found  beatitude  she  was  still  unable  to 
think  charitably  of  the  woman  who  had  smeared  her 
reputation  in  Owldom. 

"We  have  discharged  Rita,"  he  said.  "A  strange 
thing  happened.  Vanderbilt  dismissed  his  cook,  and 
immediately  after,  Miss  Eisenstein's  precious  society 
revelations  ceased.  It  appears  that  this  high-bred 
young  woman,  who  Christian-names  Fifth  Avenue 
through  its  length  and  breadth,  obtained  all  her  news 
in  Vanderbilt's  kitchen.  It  was  there  that  she  sat  night 
and  day.  The  chef  was  sweet  on  her.  He  induced 
the  servants  to  chatter,  to  retail  in  the  kitchen  all  the 
gossip  that  they  heard  at  table,  before  Miss  Eisenstein, 
who  made  use  of  it  in  the  paper.  It  was  in  this  way 
that  Rita  filled  her  column.  Vanderbilt  discovered  the 
trick,  was  furious,  discharged  the  chef,  shot  the  fair 
Rita  from  the  basement  door,  warned  his  friends — 
came  down  to  the  office,  and  there  was  the  mischief  to 
pay.  We  should  have  kept  Miss  Eisenstein — for,  after 
all,  what  she  did  was  in  our  imaginary  interests,  but 
with  the  departure  of  cook,  her  sole  source  of  news  was 
cut  off.  She  was  hopeless.  She  had  placed  all  her 
eggs  in  one  basket.  Not  an  acquaintance  in  society 
did  she  own.  The  basket  toppled.  Bang !  Poor  Rita 
was  done  for." 

Sallie  was  obliged  to  laugh,  as  she  remembered  the 
airs  and  graces  of  the  lady  who  wore  Division  Street 
hats.  She  tried  to  feel  sorry,  but  could  not  succeed. 


374  A  Girl  Who  Wrote 

After  all,  Miss  Eisenstein  deserved  her  fate,  and  while 
punishment  is  not  invariably  dealt  out  in  this  world, 
still,  occasionally,  this  happens  .  .  .  and  is  applauded. 

"What  else  can  I  tell  you?"  he  continued.  "Lamp- 
Post  Lucy  is  still  to  the  good,  quite  as  charming  as 
ever,  and  still  administering  balm  to  the  wounded 
hearts  of  the  East  Side.  Mamie  Munson  has  lost  her 
mother — that  useful  mother — but  is  not  downed.  She 
has  secured  an  aunt  to  chaperone  her,  and  to  tender  her 
beautiful  advice  on  needful  occasions." 

"Dear  old  Newspaper  Row !"  said  Sallie,  with  an  in- 
audible sigh.  "It  is  good  to  hear  of  it,  even  now, 
Jack." 

"Aunt  Hampton  is  broken-hearted,"  he  declared,  re- 
verting to  a  more  serious  subject.  "I  have  never  seen 
a  woman  more  utterly  crushed.  All  her  pride  seems 
to  have  crumbled.  You  will  see  her,  Sallie  ?  .  .  .  Yes, 
I  hope  you  will.  You  need  not  be  afraid  of  her.  I 
have  told  her  everything,  and  she  is  grateful  to  you, 
poor  soul !  But  she  believes  that  Ivy  will  return  some 
day.  Aunt  owns  a  house  in  Florida,  and  she  is  going 
there  to  settle,  because — because  she  thinks  that  when 
Ivy  comes  back  she  will  prefer  to  be  as  far  away  from 
her  old  haunts  as  possible." 

"Let  her  believe  it,  Jack,"  said  Sallie,  softly.  "Who 
knows?  More  impossible  things  have  happened.  But 
Ivy — your  cousin — is  safe.  Mrs.  Stuyvesant  will  do 
nothing  further.  She  will  take  no  steps  in  the  direc- 
tion of  publicity.  It  is  all  settled.  It  is  all — beauti- 
ful !"  she  added  rapturously. 

"Except  the  one  fact,"  he  murmured  sadly,  "that 
there  are  still  a  few  people — in  the  office — who  think 
that  you — that  you — " 

She  put  her  hands  on  his  lips.  "Who  think  that  I'm 
not  a  perfect  lady,"  she  exclaimed  gayly,  finishing  his 


A  Girl  Who  Wrote  375 

sentence.  "But  I  am,  Jack.  I  know  I  am,  and  you — 
well,  you  think  you  know  it.  Who  cares  for  the  rest  ?" 

"Sallie,"  he  said  (there  was  nearly,  but  not  quite,  a 
further  drain  upon  the  asterisks),  "I  read  the  other 
day  that  one  of  the  old  Jewish  rabbis  said,  'Descend  a 
step  in  choosing  thy  wife;  ascend  a  step  in  choosing 
thy  friend.'  These  words  were  written  in  the  days 
when  women  were  deemed  inferior.  To-day  it  is  all 
changed.  I  need  not  bother  about  the  selection  of  my 
friends,  but  I  know — oh,  how  surely  I  know ! — that  I 
am  ascending  a  whole  staircase,  winding  my  way  up 
to  a  pinnacle,  in  choosing  ...  in  choosing  .  .  ." 

"Your  wife?"  she  asked  gladly,  revelling  in  the 
sweet  flattery  of  his  words. 

"My  wife,"  he  answered  quietly,  savoring  the  ineffa- 
ble poetry  of  the  exquisite  possession. 


(THE  END.) 


Brockman's  Maverick 

By  JOSEPH  N.  QUAIL 


"  No  one  who  has  written  of  life  on  the  Western  ranch — 
and  there  have  been  many  writers  and  not  a  few  most  attrac- 
tive stories — has  put  forth  anything  better  than  '  Brockman's 
Maverick.'  *  *  *  The  book  is  a  delightful  and  charm- 
ing one  from  the  first  to  last  and  all  too  brief.  One  could 
read  many  more  chapters  of  such  writing,  and  even  then 
sigh  that  it  was  ended.  Mr.  Quail  has  achieved  a  distinct 
triumph  in  'Brockman's  Maverick.'" — Nashville  American, 

"  It  is  a  story  that  every  young  man  with  red  blood  in  his 
veins  will  want  to  read,  and,  having  read,  will  be  the  better 
for  it."— New  York  Press. 

" '  Brockman's  Maverick '  is  worthy  a  place  on  the  shelves 
•we  devote  to  Bret  Harte,  Owen  Wister,  and  the  few — all  too 
few — who  have  written  of  the  American  unadorned,  the  fron- 
tiersman, pure  and  simple,  the  plainsman,  the  rancher,  the 
Indian  fighter." — Minneapolis  Times. 

"  A  spirited  story  of  ranch  life  which  has  not  a  dull  page 
from  cover  to  cover." — Courier-Journal^  Louisville. 

"  Leaves  the  reader  with  the  impression  that  he  has  been 
reading  about  some  real  men  whom  the  writer  knew  and  that 
he  would  like  to  know  them  himself." — Baltimore  Herald. 


lamo,  Cloth,  with  an  Original  Cover  Design  by  Dan.  Smith 
Price,  $1.25.     At  all  Bookstores,  or  sent,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers 

QUAIL  &  WARNER,  23  Park  Row,  New  York 


The  Way  of  the  Gods 

By  AQUILA  KEMPSTER 

A  Record  of  Some  of  the  Wonderful  Incidents  in 
the  Life  of  Prince  Ager  Mirza 

I2mo,  Red  Cloth,  Gilt  Top,  Uncut  Edges.    Price,  75  cti. 


"  Pitched  in  a  high  key  of  continuous  interest." —  Wash- 
ington Star. 

"  It  relates  various  adventures  of  Ager  Mirza,  a  reputed 
prince,  by  whom  every  fakir,  vagabond,  and  thug  swears. 
His  love,  his  escapades,  his  vengeance  on  his  enemies  and 
favors  to  his  friends,  and  his  hairbreadth  escapes  from  re- 
peated attempts  at  assassination  are  the  subjects  of  a  series  of 
fascinating  chapters.  He  is  a  wonderfully  picturesque  figure, 
brave  but  unscrupulous,  loyal  but  unprincipled — one  whose 
uncommon  distinction  will  not  be  easily  forgotten." — Satur- 
day Book  Review  of  Philadelphia  Times. 

"  The  description  of  the  Mohammedan-Hindoo  mob,  and 
the  fight  of  Mirza's  big  body-servant  with  the  crowd,  is  as 
fine  as  anything  Kipling  ever  wrote  in  that  line." — Minneapo- 
lis Journal. 

"  It  is  slightly  dangerous  to  venture  into  a  field  which  has 
seemed  to  be  so  thoroughly  claimed  by  Kipling,  but  when 
one  has  new  and  fascinating  tales  to  tell,  as  Mr.  Kempster 
has,  the  risk  ceases  to  exist.  There  is  no  question  that  the 
author  knows  how  to  tell  a  story,  and  that  he  knows  his 
ground  as  thoroughly  as  Strickland  of  the  Police  Depart- 
ment. These  stories  are  such  as  Strickland  might  have  told 
had  he  been  a  raconteur." —  Washington  Times. 


AT  ALL    BOOKSTORES,    OR   SENT,    POSTPAID,    BY 

QUAIL  &  WARNER,  Publishers 

23    PARK    ROW,    NEW    YORK 


Some  Pretty  Girls 

A  SPLENDID  PORTFOLIO  OF  FORTY  CHARM- 
ING DRAWINGS 

By  c  if. 


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enclosed  in  an  artistic  portfolio,  with  a  cover 
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An  tfUtton  Ue  lujre,  limited  to  one  hun- 
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